


Starseeds

by inelegantly (Lir)



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Alien Flora & Fauna, Alien Planet, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Cultural exchange, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, M/M, Military Science Fiction, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Space Opera
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-23 12:22:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15606186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lir/pseuds/inelegantly
Summary: When Yukimura Seiichi – war hero, company man, and captain of the Rikkai Defensive Command – detects a threat to the vulnerable colony he was contracted to protect, he does not think twice about pursuit. His is the only ship within the fleet near enough to intercept; after following the pirates through a wormhole, his ship alone crash-lands on the planet beyond. Separated from much of his crew, Yukimura is determined to apprehend the pirate by any means necessary. Despite the cautions of his navigator, Yanagi, he is more than willing to deal with the locals and their enigmatic leader if it means getting what he wants. But Shiraishi has loyalties of his own, and the things he wishes to teach Yukimura before his ship is repaired and his crew make their way home are not at all what Yukimura thought to expect.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is being written for [the tenipuri big bang](https://tnprbb.tumblr.com). I set out to write the most self-indulgent, unapologetic, enthusiastic fic for my rarepair ships that I could conceive of, and the story proceeded to take on a life of its own. It became more than I could finish within the three month work period; I have at present written 58k words of what will likely be an 80k word draft. Today, I present the prologue and the first part of three. 
> 
> I have adored working on this story and could not have done it without the support of my partner, Yrin, and my very good friend, Samy, both of whom held my hands and encouraged my ideas and listened to me vent when scenes went off the rails. What you are reading may still be rough but has very much been a labor of love; I am very eager to finish my draft and to present a complete story to this fandom. I have loved Prince of Tennis for over a dozen years and I am thrilled to write the sort of fic for it which I have always wanted to read but could not have imagined writing as a teen in fandom. I hope you will enjoy it. 
> 
> This story has drawn inspiration from so many places and from so many pieces of media I've loved in my youth (Star Trek and Diane Duane's Young Wizards series not least among them), but it also owes a small creative debt to AO3 users [yukiscorpio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yukiscorpio/pseuds/yukiscorpio) and [seki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seki/pseuds/seki), whose yukiyana stories are among my favorites (and are highly recommended to anyone who has not previously read them). I love my small ships incredibly dearly and am grateful to everyone who has sailed in these tiny canoes with me; I would additionally like to dedicate this story to my friend June, who loves yukiyana and suffering at least as much as I do, and who is another kind of inspiration.
> 
> Barring (additional) unforeseen complications, future updates will include art, as is the nature of a big bang. 
> 
> Thank you for reading my tearful author rambling, I love space, and aliens, and power struggles, and little intimate moments in the midst of things that are larger, so I created a story which includes all of these things. It is character-focused first and foremost and if these concepts interest you, you are in for a good time. Thank you for reading!

-

-

[PROLOGUE]

-

“How big do you think space _really_ is?”

There’s a panoramic view of a piece of it spread before Yukimura, stars strewn across a velvety darkness that masks a distance greater than Yukimura can fully comprehend. The view is an illusion; Yukimura’s frigate boasts no windows, and the stars he sees are merely a recreation of what the ship’s monitoring equipment senses to be around them. Seated before him, silhouetted against that picture of the stars, Yanagi inclines his head. 

“That depends entirely upon how you define your variables. If ‘space’ represents the entirety of our known universe, the answer to your question is no more complicated than solving a formula.” 

Yanagi glances back at Yukimura, the lines of his face lit by the blue-white glow of his computer screens. “But that isn’t the question you were asking, was it, Seiichi?” 

“No,” Yukimura laughs. “It wasn’t.” 

“If your question is more a matter of philosophy,” Yanagi says, “That is something else altogether.” 

The stars slide past him as he speaks, hands upon his equipment, attention divided neatly between his captain and his duty. Yukimura takes a moment to admire the picture it paints, as if Yanagi were falling into the field of stars he is meant to navigate them through. If that were truly the case, Yukimura would never let him fall. 

Instead they are safe, alone on the bridge during what their life-support systems have deemed to be night. What space that surrounds them is of a finite size, demarcated by a series of numbers and symbols written out in the security contract Yukimura signed some several months in the past. The solar system behind them, with its little sun and its few cold, barren planets, is _his._ The Company charged Yukimura with their keeping; it is the responsibility of his fleet to keep them safe. 

More practically speaking, it is the responsibility of his fleet to provide security, and ensure that no one passes through their parcel of space without Telecomm hearing about it. Yukimura’s tiny sun leaves much to be desired as a tourist attraction, but it is the last point of reference used by starship navigators traveling to the Company colony one system beyond. They serve as a candle in the night, guiding ships home. Yukimura ensures those ships are ones the Company desires to welcome. 

He never expected to find himself doing a job like this, tying him down to one place. 

“Space is only as large as what you make of it,” he says, softly. “The scale all depends on how far you are willing to go.” 

There comes a thinking noise from Yanagi, who has turned back to his array of holographic screens. He hums like an old processor whirring slowly to life, and says, “By that metric, space must be much larger for you than it is for me.” 

“I suppose,” Yukimura says, “that by my own logic, this may be true.” 

“I don’t mind,” Yanagi admits. “It was never my ambition to see the stars. Not all of them.” 

“It wasn’t?” Yukimura asks, and laughs again. “Then whatever did you become a navigator for?” 

Yanagi is silent, for just long enough that Yukimura finds himself leaning forward in his seat. Yanagi is always a puzzle to read, thoughtful and reserved, too careful to give away any thought before it’s undergone proper polishing. His eyelashes flutter, and he keeps his face turned toward his screens. 

“Navigation is math, and physics, and a knowledge of the universe translated into practical application. I had the talent for these things. It only seemed wise, that I find the best use for that.” 

It isn’t the full answer, but there’s truth to it, to the way Yanagi strives to set the world to order. Yanagi needs to understand things, always looking at their component parts for how they’re fit together, as well as for every quality that defines them. When Yukimura stops to consider it, Yanagi is exactly the sort of person who ought to be navigating. 

Few other navigators compare, and Yukimura is not one to settle for less than the best. 

“Besides,” Yanagi adds. “I would not have had the same measure of success as a soldier.” 

“No?” Yukimura wonders, the corners of his mouth curving up in a smile. “You do have a mind for tactics. I would trust you beside me on the battlefield.” 

There’s a just-perceptible shiver Yukimura watches crawl its way up Yanagi’s spine; Yanagi sets his shoulders, and then relaxes. “No,” he says. “Even if you would have me there.” 

“It isn’t a lack of the stomach for bloodshed,” Yukimura says. “You know what I’ve done. What Genichirou has done. You never once flinched. But… Something else. Something you didn’t want to see.” 

“Seiichi,” Yanagi says. His voice is soft, not quite a plea, not yet a warning. “Please.” 

Yanagi already knows where Yukimura’s thoughts will lead, that much is obvious. What he means to forestall is only the discussion of facts long since established. Yanagi would make a more than capable soldier. To Yanagi’s mind, that is all of the problem. 

To Yukimura’s, it is only the fact that Yanagi views this as an issue that is a problem. 

“I never disliked being a soldier,” Yukimura says. “In those ships, we saw more than our share of the stars.” 

Yanagi is silent, as the screens before him flick through several different displays, flashing up reports from their monitoring equipment that vanish too quickly for Yukimura to read. It is a marvel that Yanagi can make sense of them – but again, he is the best. 

“It’s a slow night,” Yukimura says, allowing for the change in subject. 

“There isn’t anyone scheduled to pass through on the Company’s travel list,” Yanagi agrees. “We should be alone for the next three point four cycles.” 

Tracking anything in days, in the time it takes for a planet to revolve from dawn to dusk and back again, has long since ceased to hold any meaning. Even the communities housed planetside, sprawling out in the open rather than contained within the safe bubble of a spacebound colony, are strewn across far too many planets to allow for such measurements of time with any degree of standardization. 

But humanity has always been skilled at improvisation, and the schedules provided to Yukimura and his crew by the Company rarely include much variance from their local tracking of the time. Three cycles. Yukimura is in for a long and boring evening, followed by two more equally tedious ones. 

“If there is nothing present and in need of monitoring,” Yukimura says. “I’ll just open a channel with Genichirou, shall I?” 

“He will be seeing the same situation we are,” Yanagi points out. 

“Precisely,” Yukimura agrees. “All the better reason to call him, lest we find out later that he isn’t.” 

For a moment Yanagi’s mouth hangs open, while Yukimura graciously allows him the opportunity to formulate a protest. It never comes; Yanagi’s hands move across his equipment, and an additional screen snaps open, hovering between them on the air. 

“Genichirou,” Yukimura says. 

His face has appeared on the screen, with such perfect clarity that Yukimura can pinpoint the exact purple of the bruises shadowing his eyes, the sharp lines of his features and the individual hairs trailing down the slope of his jaw. It’s a face he knows knows well, with such familiarity that he could have visualized the hard set of Sanada’s mouth and the frustration written across his face even if the connection were no better than a fuzzy stretch of static projected on the screen. He isn’t looking in Yukimura’s direction. 

“Genichirou,” Yukimura says again, more sharply. Then, softer, “Having trouble?” 

“Ask Akaya,” Sanada growls, in a tone of voice that speaks trouble for anyone who might cross him. Then he takes a breath, visibly fights to compose himself, and turns to face Yukimura directly. “I’m sorry, Seiichi. Was there something that you needed?” 

“I'm not causing a problem,” another voice pipes up from off-screen. “Tell the captain that I’m not causing a problem, it’s not _my_ fault the regulations for speed are written the way that they are!” 

“Ah,” Yukimura says.

“Well it’s not!” Akaya insists. 

“Yes,” Sanada agrees, inclining his head toward Yukimura. “We are… Testing Akaya’s capabilities as a navigator. There isn’t a problem.” 

“Were you having a slow night, then?” Yukimura asks. 

Before him, Yanagi’s shoulders are shaking. He is just outside the frame of the picture being shared with Sanada’s ship; Yukimura suspects that he designed things that way on purpose. He also suspects that Yanagi is laughing. 

“Nothing has shown up on the equipment since we’ve taken our shift,” Sanada says. “Akaya was bored.” 

Disapproval colors his voice; Yukimura only smiles. “An idle mind is a dangerous thing, Genichirou. I am trusting you to ensure that his education is comprehensive. And _thorough._ I remember when you could keep an entire squadron on their toes at once. Has one junior navigator become too much for you?” 

Sanada looks for a moment like he’s swallowed an entire lemon. Yukimura laughs. 

“I’m sure you were keeping him very busy,” Yukimura allows. “And that presenting him with a suitable new challenge was only the beginning of your problems.” 

“I’m not a problem!” Akaya reminds them. “Sanada said I wasn’t a problem.” 

“So you’re not,” Yukimura agrees. “Have you made changes to the ship’s usual course in maintaining the security perimeter?” 

“Only a little,” Akaya says, before launching into an explanation of the minute changes he’s made to when their ship accelerates, and by what speed, and at what intervals, peppered with numbers and punctuated by exclamations. 

Yukimura permits it, allowing the excited patter of his words to wash over him in a wave of sound only loosely connected to meaning. Instead of listening, he watches Sanada – who appears exasperated but proud – and Yanagi, who is following along far more raptly than Yukimura and who has pulled up several new screens beside himself, which are all running streams of calculations. 

Abruptly, they stop, as Yanagi’s hand jerks through a motion to clear them. His voice cuts in, “Wait,” and though he hasn’t raised it, Akaya stops as well. 

“What’s that?” he asks. 

Yanagi is pushing aside the majority of his screens, pulling a new one to the fore and enlarging it so Yukimura has a clear view as well. There’s a speck of something traveling across it, a dark little smudge against the greater black. If not for the magnification as Yanagi trains their entire surveillance system upon it, none of them would have seen what amounts to little more than a blemish on the screen. 

“It is a ship,” Yanagi announces. 

“There are no vessels approved for travel at this time,” Sanada immediately protests. 

“But the ship remains nonetheless,” Yukimura says, leaning forward in his seat. “And moving quite slowly. Almost slow enough for our equipment to write it off as debris.” 

“That’s suspicious, right?” Akaya asks. “That ship can’t be up to anything good.” 

It is exactly what Yukimura is thinking, though he has been well-steeped in procedure and protocol, bent to the will of bureaucrats until the snap decisions of a soldier left his nerves. For the Company, there is an appropriate solution to every problem, and the first step to _solving_ problems is always to prove that the issue exists as it appears. 

“Do you recognize the class of that ship, Renji?” Yukimura asks. 

“It isn’t of Telecomm manufacture,” Yanagi replies. “And it isn’t commercial standard – too small. Something independent, maybe. It isn’t on the travel manifests, in either event. The only approved vessels for cycles are Company ships.” 

“Not official business, then,” Yukimura says. “But surely our visitor will have an explanation for why they’ve come to our lonely solar system. Let’s ask them.” 

It isn’t a suggestion. Though Yanagi – and Sanada – each give him a wary look, neither protests, and Yanagi’s fingers fly across his controls, hailing the ship on Telecomm’s general frequency. Silence stretches out on the bridge, everyone waiting for the mystery ship to make a connection. It ignores their attempts at communication. 

“Making it difficult,” Yukimura says. 

He doesn’t need to give further direction. Yanagi knows him too well, and increasingly detailed, magnified shots of the ship are popping up across his screens. The closer it comes, the better their equipment is able to translate its nature into visuals comprehensible to the human eye. Off to one side of the pictures, a long column of text scrolls by, data on all the vessels known to the Company, the better for Yanagi to compare and make an ID. 

On Sanada’s side, Akaya will be doing the same. He might not have Yanagi’s particular brand of calm or his cleverness for making unexpected connections, but he is tenacious, and competitive, and has never liked to lose. 

Yukimura prefers his crew to be that way. 

“Wait,” he says, so that Yanagi freezes all the visuals in place. “That one.” 

Once Yukimura has pointed it out, Yanagi sees it as well; a darker smudge along the side of the ship, too dark to mesh with the rest of its violet and gray paint job. It isn’t exactly text, not in any language Yukimura can read, but as Yanagi hones in on them the shapes crawling across the ship’s hull resolve themselves. 

“Spiders,” Yukimura says. 

“Like the space pirates? The black widow, those ones? They’ve _killed_ people!” 

Akaya’s tone is awestruck; he backtracks just as quickly, adding, “Not that it’ll stop us from taking them on. Captain’s done worse and for better reason, anyway! ...We are going to take them on, aren’t we?” 

A second communication screen snaps open, opposite the one broadcasting Sanada. 

For a moment, Yukimura expects it to be the pirates. The picture resolves itself instead into the image of another of Yukimura’s subordinates, his pin-straight hair neatly parted, his glasses perched high on his nose, reflecting the light from the array of his own screens spread in the space before him. An arm snakes out to curl around his neck, and a second face drops into view on the screen.

“Captain,” Yagyuu says. “There’s been a-- Is that commander Sanada? You must already know.” 

“Interloper,” Yukimura agrees. “Yes, we know. We were just speaking about capture.” 

“Capture,” Sanada repeats, darkly. “We had said nothing of capture.” 

“But Genichirou,” Yukimura says. “Surely you aren’t suggesting that we allow a ship confirmed to be piloted by known pirates into the protected space surrounding a vulnerable colony?”

“Of course not!” Sanada says, voice rising. “It is our duty to protect this colony. If you would allow me to--” 

“Seiichi.” 

They both stop and turn to Yanagi, who adds, “The ship is changing course.” 

The screens he pulls up reflect this; one sketches the arc it has traveled, first curving across the darkness toward them, then beginning to curve away again. A second screen tracks its speed, beginning at the moment of detection. The ship is accelerating. 

“Capture,” Yukimura reminds them. “Set a course to intercept.” 

“ _Seiichi,_ ” Sanada says, before abruptly swallowing his tongue. 

Yagyuu does not have the same good sense. “Captain,” he begins. “Do you really think this is wise? We know nothing about this ship save for that it houses dangerous, wanted criminals. Pursuing them in our flagship is needlessly hasty.” 

“My ship is the only ship within range,” Yukimura says. “You are half the system away from here, and Sanada is on the other side of the sun.” 

“We aren’t the only vessels in the fleet,” Yagyuu says. “There are other options.” 

“They are _too slow._ We didn’t detect this ship until it was almost upon us. This suggests it is capable of faster than light travel. If it should accelerate above light speed...” 

There is no need for him to finish the thought. Yukimura’s fleet may be comprised entirely of frigates, of small, fast ships designed for maneuverability and pursuit, but if the pirates accelerate before they are prepared to pursue, there will be no chase. This fight will be determined in the span of moments; that is how small a window exists to match the enemy’s pace, to anticipate their actions and respond with a suitable counter. 

“The window...” Yanagi says. 

“Do it.” 

The ship jumps forward, Sanada and Yagyuu’s faces snapping out of existence as Yanagi increases their speed. He pushes the panels out, screens spreading into a wide array alternating views of the pirates with windows of graphs and readouts and scrolling numbers. That information washes over Yukimura in a senseless wave; his eyes close on the image at the center, of the pirate ship pulling away. 

“That was almost too fast,” Yukimura says. “Lets go faster.” 

Yanagi obliges him, pushing their speed until several of the numbers on his readouts begin to flash green. The pirates jerk right, and Yanagi pursues, course-correcting on the fly with a deftness that makes Yukimura’s heart sing. He’s been in the pilot’s seat before, in a cockpit barely large enough to contain his equipment as well as his body. He’s thrown himself into wild pursuit, one hand gripping the clutch, the other wrapped around the many-faceted joystick of his weapons array. He remembers the precise give of each of its triggers whenever he happened to give them a squeeze. 

Yanagi’s hand is lighter – a nudge here, a tap there – fingers dancing across the controls even as his lips compress into a straight, uncompromising line. 

The pirates jerk left; Yanagi swoops right, taking a hard arc at speed that swings him around almost close enough to meet them. The pirates drop beneath them and Yanagi overshoots, correcting as quick as he can but not quick enough. He pops open a new screen, one showing the space behind them and the pirates jetting away. He flips them over, and the chase begins again. 

“Where are they going?” Yukimura wonders, as he reaches for his own console. 

These controls aren’t as familiar as the joystick in his fighter, as the weapon that was like a lance in his hands, spearing his enemies at only a touch. But they’re there, warming up to firing frequency as he considers how best to pin their enemy’s wings. 

“The colony, we thought.” 

“Yes, but that is in the opposite direction, and we seem to have them on the run.” 

“It may be a trap,” Yanagi supposes. “Theirs is a small ship, perhaps too small to have made it to this solar system on its own.” 

“Perhaps it is! I suppose we’ll only know if we go and spring it.” 

Yanagi laughs, a soft, incredulous sound muffled by the gentle clacking of his keys. _This_ is why Yanagi would make a good soldier – even when he has doubts, he follows his captain’s command, right into the face of death itself if he must. Yukimura would have no one else steering him into the enemy’s embrace. 

They’re speeding up again, closing by lengths on the pirates with every passing second. The space between their ships is vast but progressively narrows, until the pirates make another dart to the right, forcing Yanagi to jerk to meet them. 

“It isn’t going to work!” Yukimura declares, waiting until Yanagi has them again in a line before pressing at a button on his console. 

For a moment, nothing seems to happen, no visible flash of light, no sounds indicating the weapons system has fired. But Yukimura feels it in his bones when the energy from that weapon leaves their ship, like his skeleton is vibrating inside his skin. 

“Well done, Seiichi.” 

“I thought so, too.” 

For a moment, the pirate ship stutters as if stunned, its speed dropping, its path jerking out of the smooth arc it had traced since its last little feint. But then it rights itself, and Yukimura’s ship is barely closer than it had been before. 

“Something a little stronger, then,” he muses, fingertips sliding along the curve of the console. “Something a ship of that size won’t be able to brush off.” 

He waits for Yanagi to again bring them in line with the pirates, a task made more difficult by the way the enemy ship has taken to swerving and bobbing. Evasive maneuvers – clumsy ones, but effective. Yanagi’s jaw clenches tight and his brows draw together, the rhythm of his fingers on the keys a sharp staccato as he taps out adjustments to their course. He corrects, and corrects again, fine-tuning their own weaving and bobbing until he’s matched the enemy’s swooping and dropping exactly. 

They slide into line with their prey, the two ships rising and falling in perfect sync. 

Yukimura fires. _This_ weapon produces visible light – on their screens, if nowhere else, translated into a range they can see by their surveillance equipment – showing itself in a cool, cutting line that arcs between them and their target. Yukimura is a good marksman; the lance of his shot flies true, right up until the last possible moment, when the pirate ship rises a hair’s breadth out of range. 

“Damn,” he mutters, and lines up to fire again. 

“Don’t worry,” Yanagi says. “I will not allow them to use that trick a second time.” 

Yukimura waits, allowing Yanagi the space to correct their course, to absorb more of the enemy’s data and plot out the paths of their maneuvers. Once Yanagi learns them, he can match them; his timing is peerless, his reflexes quick enough to make Yukimura’s heart soar in delight. 

Just another minute. Just a few more moments, and they will drive the pirates into a corner they cannot escape from. Space is vast, and empty, and short of escalating to light speed, there is nowhere for their enemy to run. 

Or so Yukimura thinks, before the pirate ship blinks out of existence. 

He is too stunned to give a command, staring in disbelief at the empty space before them, a space which had previously contained a ship. Yanagi does not change course, and a moment later a terrible feeling seizes Yukimura, a pressure that builds like the forces exerted at launch but growing stronger, stronger, so intense it feels as if Yukimura’s bones are melting and his nerves snapping free of his skin. 

As quickly as it had come, the pressure vanishes, and the pirate ship reappears, some greater distance ahead of them than it had been before the – before that disruption. 

“What was–” Yukimura begins to say. 

“I couldn’t tell you,” Yanagi replies. “Whatever phenomenon has just occurred is entirely beyond my experience – working and theoretical.” 

“Never mind,” Yukimura says. “Whatever trick they’ve pulled, we’ll counter it.” 

“Of course.” 

Their ship speeds up again, swinging in an arc to follow the one the pirates have just leaned into. As they pull around, the vast, green globe of an unfamiliar planet rises into view on their largest, panorama screen. Yukimura is very familiar with the solar system he’s been assigned to; this is no view he’s seen before. 

The pirates are unmistakably headed to land. 

“Follow them,” Yukimura breathes. “Wherever they’re going, we’ll follow them.” 

Yanagi doesn’t complain. His mouth compresses again into a cold, concentrating line and his fingers move across his console, bringing up the routines for reentry and adjusting them rapidly, intuitively, inputting new data from their monitoring equipment as quickly as it’s processed and presented to him across his screens. 

Watching Yanagi work, sharp and bright under pressure, Yukimura never doubts that he loves him. 

The pressure of gravity assaults them, with forces greater than their ship is fully capable of shielding them from. Yukimura’s fleet is a fleet of frigates – of small, fast ships designed for maneuverability and pursuit. None of them have ever suffered the ravages of reentry, built instead to dock at Company stations when they require a place to land and refuel. 

But Yanagi is the best, and Yukimura has faith in his ability to bring them to ground. There comes a screaming in his ears, a rising whistle like a teakettle reaching a boil, sharp enough that he grits his teeth and squeezes his console tight with both hands. Yanagi’s screens are showing flashes of green and brown and blue, too fast for their equipment to resolve the picture into anything intelligible. The pressure builds, and Yukimura can hear himself starting to laugh. 

“We ought to have warned the crew!” he shouts, over the din of the noise echoing inside his skull. “None of them are prepared for this!” 

“We ought to have done a lot of things,” Yanagi says, so politely it almost fails to parse as a rebuke. 

Yanagi may think him foolish for this, for refusing to let a criminal get the jump on them, for refusing to back down when an enemy simply _could not_ be more than they can take. Yukimura doesn’t mind. He’ll have his prey in the end, just as soon as they survive the descent. 

Yanagi’s hands grip hard where he’s manning his own controls, responding to long, scrolling readouts of data all screaming red. He throws all their power into reversing thrust, fighting against the pull of the planet while avoiding pulling so hard that it rips them apart. Yukimura’s nerves are on fire, the aching in his skull building toward breaking point. He wonders how long he can last before he cracks. 

When they finally land, the impact hits him like a punch in the chest, in an explosion of pain that rips through him, devouring him, until his vision goes blessedly black. 

-

-

-


	2. Part One

-

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[PART ONE]

-

The first thing Yanagi notices is that all of his view screens are displaying fuzzy static. He knows that he’s been struck silly; he doesn’t believe that he has been concussed, not in the traditional sense of having his brain slammed against his skull through the force from his head striking an object. But he does wonder whether a similar result hasn’t been achieved by the shock of their landing. He doesn’t remember when the pictures went out. 

He takes stock of himself – shaky and nauseous, but in one piece – before turning in his chair to survey his captain. Yukimura is holding his head between flat-pressed hands and the soft, stuttering sound as he breathes out bears a suspicious resemblance to laughter. 

“I take it you have survived our landing,” Yanagi says. “More or less?” 

“Oh, definitely less,” Yukimura agrees. He rubs at his face, and pulls his hands away. “How is she doing?” 

“I haven’t yet had the opportunity to check.” 

All the blank screens are providing little reassurance, even as Yanagi reaches again for his console. Their surveillance equipment gives him strange feedback when he attempts to bring it back online; columns and columns of unintelligible text scroll by on the only screen now displaying something other than static, before Yanagi clears it with distaste. 

“Our monitoring equipment is down,” Yanagi reports. “We may have suffered exterior damage.” 

“Not surprising,” Yukimura admits. “Considering what we’ve put the ship through. How are our communication systems?” 

“I’ll test them,” Yanagi says. “Who shall I call?” 

“Genichirou,” Yukimura suggests immediately. 

Yanagi does not offer comment. Instead he lets his fingers tap across the keys, comforted by the familiar routine of the communication protocol. He’s given this command to their main computer more times than he can count, so many times that it’s become second nature. A screen has always snapped open in response, showing them a window into Sanada’s ship. Neither Yanagi nor Yukimura likes being away from him, but with technology what it is, he’s never more than a call away. 

For the first time since Yanagi has taken the Telecomm security posting with Yukimura, the communications screen fails to appear. 

Instead, a small window pops up besides his right hand, displaying an error message that devolves into the same bad code and incomprehensible text that the surveillance system had spat out. Yanagi purses his lips, finding himself intrigued – but also frustrated. 

“I would say that our communication system is down as well,” Yanagi reports. “At least, for external calls. Allow me a moment to test a theory.” 

Yanagi resumes typing, following the protocol for hailing a ship on the Telecomm general frequency. It’s a public channel, allowing for the most open, unrestricted exchange of information. Anyone can intercept a message on the general frequency, and just about anyone can send one. Calling Sanada is a bit more complex, and requires the use of other systems aboard their ship: for encryption, and for establishing a direct connection. 

If their communications system is damaged but only the other systems have been taken offline, that would explain the inability to connect to Sanada’s ship. If any part of it is working at all… Yanagi should be able to send a hail out on the public channel. 

His attempt brings him nothing but more red scrolling text, more screaming errors. 

“I take it that isn’t good,” Yukimura says, watching over Yanagi’s shoulder. 

“No,” Yanagi agrees. “It isn’t.” 

“Is there anything that is working on this ship?” Yukimura asks. 

“The life support system,” Yanagi replies immediately. “If that were malfunctioning, we would have been made aware of it long before now.” 

“Very funny,” Yukimura says, and throws himself back in his chair. 

“It isn’t a joke. The life support system is online, including our shielding technology which will have protected us during reentry. I believe the main computer itself is damaged, but from what little I have yet accessed to analyze, the structural integrity of the ship has not been significantly compromised.”

“Small mercies,” Yukimura says.

“Indeed.” 

“Can we launch?” Yukimura asks. “Can we – where are the pirates? Oh, we have made a mistake, we have made a terrible mistake.” 

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Yanagi says. “If the pirates were intent on attacking our ship, I expect we would know about _that_ by now, as well. However, I am unable to track them in any way, as our monitoring equipment remains offline.” 

Yukimura curses, and looks away, doubtlessly weighing his options. Yanagi is doing the same, but he is not the captain. His primary duties are to Yukimura and to the ship; he is doing what he can to assess the ship’s damage. Beyond that, his time is at Yukimura’s mercy. 

“We’ll have to go out,” Yukimura says, abruptly. 

Yanagi pauses a moment, before requesting, “Would you mind repeating that?” 

“Exactly what I said. You heard me the first time, Renji. If we cannot do surveillance from inside the ship, we have no choice but to do it from outside. I would think this was obvious.” 

It is very, very not obvious, but Yanagi knows from experience that this is not the sort of reason Yukimura will trouble himself to see. He’s a stubborn man, and proud, and moreover, it was his command that brought them to crash-land on a foreign planet in the first place. By that logic, the responsibility to solve their problems rests squarely on Yukimura’s shoulders. 

It is the responsibility to assist him that weighs on Yanagi instead. 

“What exactly do you hope to survey?” Yanagi asks, warily. 

“The terrain. The passage of the pirates’ spacecraft. Our own ship, to confirm that there isn’t exterior damage the computer is incapable of assessing to report. If we must remain on the surface of this planet a while, I would prefer to know what that entails.” 

“What makes you believe that we are staying on this planet for any significant time?” 

Yukimura simply levels him with a look, the soft, sad one that so clearly says he pities someone as smart as Yanagi choosing to ask so stupid a question. “Are we in any state to launch?” 

That stops Yanagi. From all of his cursory inspections, they are right enough mechanically for their ship to take off and to at minimum establish a geosynchronous orbit before determining a course back toward their parcel of space. What they aren’t in any position to do is navigate a course – not back to their solar system, not even from the ground up to break free of the planet’s atmosphere. None of the systems Yanagi relies upon to navigate and control the ship are working well enough to pilot it. 

“That is what I thought,” Yukimura says. 

Yanagi accepts the opportunity to avoid admitting that of course, Yukimura was right. 

“If you wish to stay here with the equipment,” Yukimura continues, “I understand. It may be the case that you do us more good doing a more thorough inspection of what files and systems are damaged, or by determining what can be done to bring the malfunctioning systems back online. It isn’t necessary for you to disembark.” 

“But it is necessary for you?” Yanagi asks, wryly. “Our captain?” 

“Who better?” Yukimura returns. 

Yanagi has many potential answers, none of which he assesses to be wise. Yagyuu has already made this argument; Yagyuu knew it was foolishness for their captain to lead the charge against a criminal spacecraft, making himself vulnerable and leaving the majority of his crew behind. Yanagi hadn’t believed any different, he’d simply had no argument to the contrary worthy of the breath it cost to speak it. 

He still has no argument to the contrary, but does ask, “Do you intend to go alone?” 

“That depends!” Yukimura says, brightening as he comes to business. “Do you plan to come with me?” 

Yanagi only wishes he had words in his vocabulary with which he might be able to refuse. When it was Yukimura asking, Yanagi always found himself willing to take the long odds, almost before he’d finished calculating them. 

“I would,” Yanagi hedges. “But we have been on duty past the usual duration of our shift. It would be against regulations for us to continue to work under these circumstances. Rather, I would recommend choosing the most qualified of our crew to explore and report back. Who is meant to go next on shift?” 

“I won’t,” Yukimura says, flatly refusing to even entertain the question. “I won’t pick out members of my crew to embark on a mission I am unwilling to participate in myself. The members of this crew are not cannon fodder, Renji, and I will not send them into danger you believe is beyond me. A captain must be willing to lead.” 

“A captain must be willing to give orders,” Yanagi returns. “If he will not, and he falls, who will guide his subordinates in his place?” 

“I imagine you would,” Yukimura says, sweetly. “Seeing as Genichirou is not around.” 

Yanagi snaps his mouth shut, finding himself so inexplicably insulted he cannot even begin to formulate a response. Yukimura smiles, a hard, fierce twist of his lips that shows too many teeth, and looks pleased with himself. 

“If safety in numbers will appease you,” Yukimura continues, in the gentle sort of voice which means he believes Yanagi is being very foolish, “I am willing to assemble a team. We are descending onto an unknown planet; it may be helpful to have a few extra sets of hands.” 

Before Yanagi can say anything else, Yukimura is pressing a button on his console. For a long moment they stare at each other, both realizing in the same instant that the communications systems have been down, and what Yukimura is opening is a local communications channel. When the relevant window pops open, they both jump in surprise. 

“Captain?” a voice says. “What’s going on?” 

The local channel is audio only, used for communication between certain vital areas of the ship. Yanagi peers at the edge of the window, where fine white text declares that they are connected with the weapons room. 

“We seem to have gotten into a bit of an altercation with space pirates,” Yukimura says, as if this is the most ordinary thing in the world. “We’ve been forced to land on an unfamiliar planet. How did your division weather our landing?” 

“Not the best,” Jackal admits. “It was rough.” 

Rough is an understatement, but now that Yanagi recognizes the voice on the line, he isn’t surprised. Jackal is practical, capable, and not the sort of man to complain about a problem if it won’t result in a solution. Whether he is Yukimura’s deliberate choice to venture planetside, Yanagi can only guess. An _educated_ guess says, Jackal would serve them well on the ground, so the probability is high. 

“Is anyone injured?” Yukimura asks. 

“No,” Jackal replies. “Shaken up, yes, and one of my subordinates was sick. No one is hurt, and we’ve gotten that cleaned up.” 

“Wonderful!” Yukimura says. “Would you like to join us planetside? The ship’s monitoring and surveillance system is damaged, which means we’ll have to do our monitoring by hand. I believe your shift on duty was next. I would more than appreciate your expertise on the ground.” 

Yukimura phrases his request like a suggestion. Yanagi knows it is no such thing. 

“I’d be happy to help,” Jackal says. “Let me finish up here and get everyone started on repairs. Some of the parts for the weapons systems are damaged, but we’ll put them to rights. Then I’ll suit up.” 

“Excellent,” Yukimura continues. “Before you join us, pick out someone else you’re comfortable working with, and have them suit up as well. Thank you, Jackal.” 

“Not a problem, captain,” Jackal replies. “I’ll do that.” 

Yukimura closes the connection. 

“There you are,” he says, turning to Yanagi. “Everything is fine. Your captain isn’t walking into danger alone; now I am leading the landing party.” 

-

“This does seem a bit undignified,” Yukimura says, craning his neck up at the side of their ship. 

Yanagi looks along with him, watching as Jackal’s subordinate pulls himself up over the rim separating the top half of their spaceship from the landing equipment housed below. He is aided by the cup of Jackal’s hands, as their weapons technician boosts his smaller partner over the edge. Their efforts would have benefited greatly from something so simple as a ladder, but such a tool was never any use to them in space. 

“You did wish to assess whether there was external damage to the ship,” Yanagi points out. “It appears we have no better option than this.” 

Yukimura presses his mouth into a thin, thoughtful line, and does not comment. Instead, he asks, “Who is that, crawling around on my ship? I don’t recognize him.” 

At a distance, Yanagi also does not recognize the small form scrambling along the ship’s hull. The suits they use outside their spacecraft are slim and closely-fitting, requiring only a football-sized device between the shoulderblades to provide life support and other vital functions. Wearing them, all of their crew becomes nigh-interchangeable, that fact little aided by the shell of a helmet that extends from the suit’s neck. From afar, even the face is unrecognizable.

Yanagi doesn’t recognize the man, but he is familiar with their crew manifest. “He is a recent transfer,” Yanagi says. “We accepted him onto our crew during our last rest visit to the colony. He came personally recommended.” 

“Upon whose recommendation?” Yukimura asks. 

Yanagi is quiet a moment, before limiting his response to, “A friend’s.” 

He hasn’t yet determined for what purpose Inui has performed this particular favor, but when his old friend suggested they find space among their crew for a new university graduate of Inui’s acquaintance, Yanagi had chosen to accept. Sometimes, with Inui, the only way to get satisfying answers was to consent to participating in the experiment. 

If nothing else, the commentary from Jackal in Katsuo’s employee file has been nothing save complimentary. 

“How is it?” Yukimura asks, switching from the private channel with Yanagi to the general one inclusive of Jackal and Katsuo. “Is there structural damage?” 

“Nothing major!” Katsuo reports, as his head again pokes over the edge of the ship and into their line of sight. “Her body is pretty beaten up, but it’s all surface level. I-It doesn’t look very nice, but it isn’t anything that would affect operation!” 

“Do you agree with that?” Yukimura asks. “Jackal?” 

“I trust his assessment,” Jackal says. “Nothing I’m seeing shows any physical damage to what parts of our monitoring equipment are exposed, either. But if I want to know more, I’ll have to detach the equipment and disassemble it.” 

“That won’t be necessary,” Yukimura says. “Not yet.” 

He waits as Katsuo again descends from atop the ship, staring thoughtfully off into the space beyond the clearing they stand within. The surrounding area is densely forested, or was – there is now a wide swathe of cleared ground where their ship tore apart the trees during its descent, which stretches out behind them for some distance. There are places where the underbrush has burnt away entirely, seared down to the dirt by the heat their ship produced. If they’d lit any fires, they have all burned out now. 

“I don’t see any sign of the pirates,” Yukimura says. 

Neither does Yanagi. There ought to be similar signs of a rough landing, if their quarry reached the surface anywhere in their vicinity. But the trees all crowd close together, their canopies stretching high overhead. While Yanagi can see a good distance back along the trail their ship has carved, in every other direction the tree trunks create an impenetrable wall, obstructing their vision. Yanagi looks up; everything overhead is green, both the many-hued patchwork of leaves and what Yanagi can only assume is the local sky. 

It has been a very, very long time since Yanagi has seen a natural skyline. 

“We could attempt to track them,” Jackal points out. “If I detach our equipment.” 

“Oh yes,” Yukimura says. “If you can make use of it, please do.” 

Jackal doesn’t require a boost when he climbs up to their monitoring equipment. He knows where every cleverly-hidden handhold and foothold is, ascending to the monitoring nexus above them as casually as if he were walking upstairs. 

Yanagi is aware that Jackal is head of their weapons crew, but has never previously had a need to observe the man at work. His records indicate he has a background in engineering, and a specific proficiency with defensive systems. He oversees the maintenance and repair of their weapons equipment; while the monitoring system is another creature entirely, it stands to reason that Jackal may be equipped to assist in its repair as well. 

When he returns to them, they all crowd close to stare at the object he’s chosen to remove. 

While their equipment has been configured to interface with their main computer and to communicate between its disparate parts as a unified system, many of the individual tools can be operated alone. The machine Jackal has chosen to repurpose is usually used for detecting radiation, of the sorts associated with many forms of space-faring weaponry. 

It can also determine the atmospheric composition of the immediate area on a planet, judging by the simplistic readout displaying on its screen. And it can detect the presence of certain compounds, compounds only commonly associated with the consumption of a spacecraft’s fuel. 

“The composition of our fuel doesn’t account for the presence of these compounds,” Yanagi says, meeting Jackal’s eyes overtop the device. 

“The space pirates?” Yukimura asks. 

“The space pirates,” Jackal confirms. “This isn’t very clean.” 

“I would not expect pirates to prioritize using sustainable fuels,” Yanagi points out. 

Jackal shrugs. Past him, Yukimura’s eyes are bright, shining behind the screen of his helmet. “These byproducts from the pirates,” Yukimura says. “If we can trace them, can we follow them?” 

A feeling of dread opens up in the pit of Yanagi’s stomach, like he’s sinking straight through the planet’s soft, loamy surface. 

“We could,” Jackal says. “I can monitor the readouts, and proceed along the route where these compounds are in the highest concentration. But it won’t stay that way for long.” 

“Of course,” Yukimura says. “In that case, let’s be quick. We have a trail to follow.” 

Jackal and Katsuo stare at him; Yanagi rolls his shoulders, and adjusts the set of the life support system pressing against his back. They adhere to a very strict exercise regimen aboard the ship, lest their otherwise sedentary lifestyle destroy their bodies. It has been a very, very long while since Yanagi has gone for a jog without being strapped into a machine.

He should protest. He _wants_ to protest, when they have no equipment more than what they’d brought off the ship to protect their bodies and assess the damage. They are in no way prepared for a hike through an alien forest in pursuit of a band of wanted criminals. 

“What are our intentions?” Yanagi asks, rather than saying any of that. 

“Surveillance, of course,” Yukimura says, smiling wide and bright. “Only surveillance.” 

Yanagi does not believe him for a second. 

“Of course,” is what he says. “Let us proceed to where we might observe our enemies.” 

-

The underbrush in the alien forest is thick and dense, comprised of wide, spreading bushes and low, tough grass, the blades sharp-edged and sticky enough to catch against the material of their suits. There is no discernable path through the trees, but Jackal leads the way, holding his equipment and following the trail left by the pirates’ fuel. 

They have several false starts – it isn’t a clear trail so much as a presence of something which shouldn’t be there, something which diffuses through the air and more than once leads them in the wrong direction. Jackal will begin to walk one way, before determining that the concentration has decreased beyond what he can account for and causing him to head back the way they had come. The going is slow, and for the most part, they walk in silence. 

The passing of the spacecraft has created a disruption in the local magnetic fields, electrifying the air and leaving a taste like ozone on their tongues. The suits filter the air for them but it has been determined to be of a composition safe for their respiration, safer than continuing to rebreathe their same recycled air. Yanagi begins to feel light-headed; he wonders if the oxygen concentration is higher than what he’s grown used to aboard the ship, but of course the readings inside his helmet tell him it is no different. 

There is no scientific explanation for the sped-up beating of his heart, for the way he breathes in deep over and over, faster and faster, tasting something green and unfamiliar that gathers against the back of his throat. The suit is meant to protect him; the alien atmosphere is creeping inside anyway, into his lungs and his bloodstream and his body. His pulse is running too fast but even as he calms himself, as he hangs back at the rear of their group where he can take his time and observe, he cannot force his heart rate to slow. 

He knows they have been walking for a very long time. He can feel it in his legs and in his back; the life support system which is hardly a burden in the weightless void of space has become a heavy anchor, threatening to drag him to the ground. The green canopy stretched high above them has begun to change colors; thick, golden light shines down, though it feels as if it doesn’t reach as far beneath the branches as it had when they first left the ship. 

When the light goes orange, and then red, and shadows begin to gather between the trees, Yanagi stops, and waits for Yukimura to do the same. 

“We cannot go on any further,” Yanagi says. 

“We cannot go back,” Yukimura replies. “We may not be able to track the pirates again, if we wait until this planet’s morning.” 

“This is physically irresponsible,” Yanagi insists. “Our bodies have already experienced a trauma as a result of our crash landing. We have walked to the point of exhaustion and we do not know what dangers exist on this world at night. We have no choice but to stop.” 

“You want to rest?” Yukimura asks. 

Hope blossoms on Katsuo’s face and when Yanagi glances toward Jackal he sees weary, guarded approval there as well. He doesn’t wish to fight Yukimura, because he takes little enjoyment in battles he will be hard-pressed to win. But he knows he’s right. Their landing party was never prepared for an all-night march. 

“It is our only choice,” Yanagi says. “You are right – we cannot go back to the ship. But we cannot go on without risking hurting ourselves, either.” 

Yukimura glances away, out along the trees marching off toward some unseen distance. Their position isn’t easily accessible; the nature of the alien forest protects them by providing only narrow, indirect passage for anything of their own size or much larger. Nevertheless, they are in the open. For the entire time they have been walking, Yanagi has seen no signs of shelter. Only trees, and bushes, and more trees, blending together into an unremarkable stream of green and gray and brown, like the flashes of the planet shown to him by their malfunctioning cameras when they crashed. 

“I am not so certain we should camp here,” Yukimura says, still looking away. 

“It isn’t especially defensible,” Yanagi agrees. 

“We can split watch,” Jackal points out. “We can defend ourselves.” 

At that, Katsuo appears uncertain. Yukimura and Jackal are both military and Yanagi may as well be, for all the time he has spent in Sanada and Yukimura’s company. Not for the first time, Yanagi wonders why Inui has saddled him with this particular civilian. 

“I would be amenable to that,” Yanagi agrees. 

Yukimura doesn’t reply. At some point during their hike, he has retracted the helmet to his suit and his hair hangs loose about his face, in gentle waves gone limp from the local humidity. He has so little fear of their environment, breathing the foreign air directly into his lungs, allowing the light from the foreign sun to fall directly onto his face. He’s tipped it up, staring between the branches of the trees as if he might divine an answer to his problems from the particular angles of their crossings. 

Yukimura is brave in the face of the unknown, but he isn’t entirely reckless. His silence speaks to that; he will do what is best for their party, just so long as he can determine what that course of action happens to be. 

Movement at the edge of his vision catches Yanagi’s eye; before he can fully turn his head, a shadow shoots from between the trees. Red light from the setting sun illuminates thick, dark fur as if it were on fire, gilding the muscular form of some massive, wild animal with light as it launches itself into the air. There comes a solid, meaty slap as it strikes Yukimura in the chest, then a softer thump as his back hits the ground. 

The monster goes still, one enormous paw on Yukimura’s shoulder, its mouth hanging wide in a toothy, wicked grin. Yanagi freezes. He can hear his heartbeat drumming fast in his ears, a heavy, pulsing beat that races faster with every passing second. The creature looks like images he’s seen of wolves from humanity’s days on the planet earth, if wolves were thrice their earthly size and mottled in shades of red and orange and brown. Yukimura is still beneath it. The monster’s teeth are far too close to Yukimura’s throat. 

There comes a low, electric hum, and both Yanagi and the beast whip their heads toward the sound. Standing a few feet away, Jackal has pulled his weapon, which is warming to firing potential. 

It comes down to speed. How quickly can Jackal pull the trigger. How quickly will a shot from an energy weapon incapacitate a creature the size of this monster. How quickly can it turn and tear into the exposed flesh of Yukimura’s throat, even with its blood spilling out onto the ground.

They are never given the chance to find out. 

The monster makes a low, regretful keen, whining softly in the back of its throat. Surprised, Jackal stops, his stance weakening in brandishing his firearm. As they all watch, the creature on top of Yukimura sinks back on its haunches and begins to change. The sight of it makes Yanagi sick; there is something unsettling about watching fur rearrange itself, shrinking and shifting and crawling across the creature’s skin, pink patches appearing as the hair recedes. Its face collapses in, the bones of its snout breaking apart beneath the spreading bare skin and reconfiguring themselves into new features. 

It has a human face, as the bones of its limbs similarly rearrange themselves. Yanagi swallows against the rising tide of nausea crawling up his throat, and looks away. He swallows several times more, fighting down his revulsion, before he looks back. 

There’s a boy sitting astride Yukimura’s hips, red-headed and dirty and wearing nothing more than a cloak of wolf-hair and shorts so small they may as well have been undergarments. He’s grinning, with smaller, deceptively-human teeth, but a grin that is no less feral and wide. 

“Come with me!” the boy says. “I got told I shouldn’t bite you.” 

-

“We are not going to do this,” Yanagi says, not for the first time. 

Yukimura is dirtier after his tumble, with bits of leaves and earth clinging to his suit. He conducts himself as if the attack had never happened, accepting a hand up from his assailant with easy grace. There are no claw marks on his suit and no teeth have penetrated his skin; Yukimura brushes himself off as if he had never been anything other than perfectly in control of the situation. 

“Renji,” Yukimura says. “We are, as we speak, making first contact with an alien species. What kind of scientist would you be, if you passed up the opportunity for an information exchange between our cultures?” 

Yukimura’s eyes are sparkling, though his voice is sober and serious. Yanagi looks past him to their representative of the alien species; if the boy had still been in possession of his tail, Yanagi suspects it would be wagging. 

“Seiichi...” Yanagi begins, and goes no further. 

They aren’t playing games. A company man and an alien life-form should never have had cause to meet; for all that the smiling child before them may look deceptively human, the reality is plainly otherwise. Yukimura might be able to look past that, to brush aside the procedures and methodology that form the very backbone of Yanagi’s many years of study and research. But Yanagi cannot so easily discard everything his upbringing has taught him to uphold. 

He has so many questions he wishes he could ask. 

“Right,” Yukimura says, brightly, as if Yanagi had agreed with him. There is a smile on his lips as he turns toward the boy, but the look in his eyes is clear and sharp. “Tell me why my crew should do anything that you say.” 

The boy tilts his head to the side, his wide, guileless eyes blinking up at Yukimura. “Because I asked nicely?” 

Jackal coughs; Yanagi is less tempted to laugh. 

Yukimura considers this, cool and appraising. “I don’t make decisions on faith alone, or because someone happened to say ‘please.’ If we come with you, I need reason to believe you aren’t harboring further ill intentions.” 

The boy tilts his head the other way, and this time his stare is less vacant. He frowns in concentration, listening hard, though Yanagi is unable to discern to what he is paying such rapt attention. Yukimura allows the pause to draw out, and is rewarded when the boy’s face breaks into an eager grin. 

“That!” he declares, pointing past Yanagi to where Jackal is standing. 

His arms are folded over his chest, shoulders squared and posture deceptively at ease. His weapon hangs from his hip, holstered but left to stand in plain view. It easily draws the eyes of their entire group. 

It doesn’t escape Yanagi’s attention that they are easily understanding the “alien” species’ speech, which none of them should have encountered before. 

“The energy weapon?” Yukimura asks, his voice taking on a definite edge. “What about it?” 

There comes a wind through the trees, blowing hard enough that the branches above them tremble and shake. The leaves rustle together, sliding and scraping against one another in a rising rush of sound. The boy bats at the air in front of himself, swiping to the side as if brushing away cobwebs and eventually, the sound of the wind dies away to silence. 

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” the boy says, before locking his bright little eyes on Yukimura’s face. “I want you to shoot me with that.” 

Yukimura considers this. “Will you die, if I do?”

“Not if you miss,” the boy says. “Not if you don’t really shoot.” 

Yanagi is opening his mouth, the protest of “we are not going to do this” once again sharp on his tongue. But Yukimura is smiling slowly wider, holding out his hand and tossing Jackal an expectant look. “If that is your request,” he says. “I accept.” 

Jackal steps forward, sliding the gun out of its place on his belt and setting it against the curve of Yukimura’s waiting palm. He turns it over, examining the cartridge as casually as another person might examine their nails, before extending it toward the alien and sliding into a firing stance. 

Yukimura is a good marksman, and the gun is leveled directly between the boy’s eyes. From such close range, the chance of Yukimura missing his shot is nonexistent. 

He corrects, and fires, and a tuft of the boy’s hair evaporates within the beam of light that passes close above his ear. The air around them hums with the discharge, and Yanagi can taste electricity on his tongue, like he’s taken a shock of static to the mouth. 

The boy before them doesn’t flinch, holding steady and staring Yukimura down until he drops his arm. 

“We’re even!” he declares. “I almost bit you, you almost bit me… Can we go? Come on, come on, can we go now?” 

Yukimura shakes his head, swallowing back a laugh. “Where are we going, child?” 

“I’m not a child,” he shoots back in return. “Well, not really. I’m Kintarou! And we’re going home, come on, if I don’t take you, you’ll _never_ find the way.” 

“Well then!” Yukimura says. “It sounds as if our plans have been decided. After this exhilarating exchange of culture, we will continue with the aliens’ representative to their home.” 

He turns, and presses the gun back into Jackal’s hands, and adds, as easily as if he were commenting on the weather: “And if it puts you at ease, feel free to shoot him. At the first sign anything might be wrong. We know now that if you shoot to kill, you may yet meet with success.” 

For a moment, as Yukimura moves away from Jackal, he catches Yanagi in his line of sight. There is a brief twitch of his mouth, a twist of his lips like there’s something he wishes to say. He looks past Yanagi again before Yanagi can begin to respond. 

“Let’s go then, Kintarou,” Yukimura says. “You have convinced me to accede to your request.” 

-

As Kintarou leads them deeper into the forest, the scenery begins to transform around them. The thin, close-growing trees Yanagi has grown used to give way to larger, wider specimens, their trunks broad enough to block out the warm, fading evening light. These trees seem to require greater breathing space; around them, the forest floor opens up to an avenue wide enough to allow Yanagi and Jackal to walk abreast. 

Though his arm hangs casually by his side, Jackal has his gun to hand, and Yanagi can feel the potential from its active charge like the warmth of the planet’s unfamiliar sun, as a prickling sensation crawling all down his left side. The presence of the weapon brings him little comfort, nor does it allow him to forget that it is engaged. 

Kintarou appears not to have noticed; his arms swing by his sides as he walks and there is an eager bounce to his every step. His enthusiasm frequently carries him ahead of the group, forcing him to glance back and pout and hurry them along. 

“Come on, come on,” he says. “We’re going to be late!” 

“I wasn’t aware we were on a schedule,” Yukimura replies. 

He is walking directly behind Kintarou, arms folded behind his back and face tipped up. It’s strange, seeing him out of his uniform – as captain, Yukimura rarely has reason to don one of the suits they’re all wearing now. Yukimura appears slimmer, younger, without the jacket dripping with insignia hanging off of his shoulders. 

Katsuo walks a few steps behind Yukimura, his eyes darting around every so often, taking in as much of their surroundings as he can. Jackal and Yanagi are bringing up the rear; every so often Katsuo slows enough that he almost bumps into them, before hurrying to again dog Yukimura’s heels. He favors the space directly in Yukimura’s shadow, as if he expects the captain to protect him in the not-unlikely event of an attack. 

Interesting, when Jackal is in possession of their sole weapon. 

“Here, here,” Kintarou says, skipping across another wide clearing between the increasingly-massive trees. He reaches out to grab Yukimura’s wrist, pulling him along too quickly for protest. 

Yukimura pulls back on his hand, unwilling to be led, and for a moment Yanagi expects Jackal to raise his arm and shoot. He can feel Jackal’s body tense, just as he feels the charge from Jackal’s weapon itching against his skin. This is their captain; they have been tasked with his defense. With someone as fearless as Yukimura, judging when he is truly in danger becomes a Herculean task. 

But Yukimura only laughs, and entreats of Kintarou, “Wait for the others, you’re leaving them behind.” 

With more caution, Yanagi and Jackal and Katsuo follow, as Kintarou leads them around the trunk of a tree broad enough to be a building. Its bark hangs from it in great rippled sheets, folded into ridges deep enough to hide an entire person behind. Kintarou pulls Yukimura behind one of those ridges, and disappears. 

For Yanagi, the decision to follow is easy. The dangers of his current position are entirely unknown, but ahead of him lies Yukimura, and a volatile foreign quantity he has at least had the opportunity to assess. To follow is to maintain a position of greater safety – and to keep Yukimura ever in view, the magnet drawing Yanagi to his personal concept of north. 

Behind the folds of the tree’s bark there is only shadow, a darkened passage between layers of living wood which Yanagi walks down blind. For a few paces, the walls around him come so close to touching that with his arms hanging at his sides, his fingers can follow them on either side. He then rounds a corner, and steps out into a wider hallway within the tree, one lit by warm shafts of light falling onto them from far above. 

Yukimura stands just ahead of him, paused in the process of admiring their surroundings. 

Yanagi follows his captain’s eye, looking up, and up, and up further still. Above them is a criss-crossing of vines hanging down between the layers of bark, in thick, brown coils draped with moss and dripping with leaves, though Yanagi is uncertain whether those belong to the vines themselves, or to other plants growing along their lengths. The last of the setting sun’s light shines down on them through cracks in the tree’s outermost layer of bark, and below that, strings of colorful paper lanterns provide further illumination. 

As the last of the daylight fades away, the glowing will-o-the-wisps hovering in the lanterns are just bright enough to light the way. 

“What is this place?” Jackal asks, from behind Yanagi. 

“Home!” Kintarou announces. “Home, home, welcome to our home! Welcome to Shitenhoji!” 

It is the first thing the alien has said which doesn’t immediately parse for Yanagi; the syllables slide around in his head, filtering through the Telecomm translator that was long ago installed in his brain and equipped with all of the common – and a wide selection of uncommon – human languages. It parses Kintarou’s unfamiliar words, arranging the syllables in a way that feels sensible, even as the meaning slips past Yanagi’s grasp. 

It’s frustrating – and fascinating. Yanagi had suspected as much, but this is confirmation; everything else Kintarou has said is in the Company common tongue. This is the first time he’s felt the translator engage. 

“It’s lovely,” Yukimura says. “Everything is very… Green.” 

“And gold, and brown,” Kintarou agrees, nodding to himself. “It’s full of growing things, isn’t it great? I was good with the plants. Shiraishi said so.” 

“Yes...” Yukimura says, visibly distracted. His head is turned, eyes scanning along one string of lanterns. “Yes, I imagine it is.” 

“You imagine,” someone repeats, in a sing-song which perfectly parrots Yukimura’s voice. 

He jerks around, awareness narrowing in on the sound even as the motion of his body directs his crew to follow the line of his gaze. Yanagi squints in the low light, struggling to resolve the shadowy shapes he sees up ahead into anything sensible. They elude him, hovering where the hall they’re on curves out of sight in chasing the natural curvature of the tree. 

“Caught us, did you?” another voice asks, before there comes the muffled thump of something heavy dropping against the wood. 

“You were above us,” Jackal says. “In the vines.” 

“Guilty as charged~” the stranger says, rising from the crouch he’d dropped into after his leap. His voice is high and raspy, but also playful, and when he lifts his head there’s a tiny smile curling his mouth. He isn’t much larger than Kintarou and appears human – like a little old man, his shoulders rolled forward and hands pressed together. 

Behind him, the first speaker also steps into view. If his fellow appeared with a bang, his reveal is made with a flourish, his body seeming to materialize out of the shadows. It appears as if the leaves from the vines hanging above and around them are melting into flesh, parting over his skin and presenting in their place a skinny young man whose long hair falls about his face like a curtain of pine needles. The two stand shoulder to shoulder, supporting each other and leaning in toward Yukimura. 

“Koharu,” the one who had jumped says. 

“And Yuuji,” the other adds. 

“We couldn’t help watching,” Koharu continues, wriggling back and forth as if he cannot contain himself. 

“And noticed that Kintarou brought home something nice,” Yuuji finishes, with a wider smile.

“Let us get a good look at you,” they say together, and reach their hands toward Yukimura. 

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Yukimura objects, coldly enough that they both draw up short. 

“Hmm,” Yuuji murmurs. 

“Ye~es,” Koharu agrees. “Kintarou did bring home an interesting one!” 

“Come _on,_ ” Kintarou says, darting in between them and pushing them apart. “You can do... Whatever it is you do _later,_ I’m supposed to take them to Shiraishi _now._ ” 

“Of course, of course,” Koharu says, turning around. 

“We understand,” Yuuji agrees, turning as well and starting to march away before them. 

“Onward, to Shiraishi!” they say together. 

Kintarou rolls his eyes, and once again grabs Yukimura by the wrist. “They do that sometimes,” he says. “Let’s go, let’s go; come on, come on!” 

This time, Yukimura doesn’t laugh. Their party resumes its progress, walking more slowly as they follow their alien entourage down an avenue of wood that burrows through the living flesh of the enormous tree. The light from the setting sun is all but gone and strange shadows fall around them, broken intermittently by lantern-light. It glows green and gold and red and blue, colored by the paper and contained to shallow pools that only spill so far into the night. Above them, the vault of bark and branches vanishes into eternity. 

They round another corner, a sharper one, more abrupt than the curvature of the tree can account for. It dumps them out into a wider passageway, into a space more like a single room, with an interwoven ceiling of branches hanging only an arm’s-length or two above them and dripping with further dozens of lanterns. 

Before them, a boy lies draped over the interwoven branches at the back of the room, lounging as if cradled in a hammock. His head rises as they walk closer, pale hair standing out against the brown of the bark and the shadows still lingering in the back of the room. 

“Welcome,” he says. “Thank you for returning Kintarou to me.” 

He swings his legs down so he’s sitting upright, sliding them free from the twining embrace of the vines in the process. The plants appear to have grown around him; as they watch, he sets himself apart and holds out his hand. Kintarou trots over, shoving his head up under it and accepting a familiar ruffle to his hair. 

“I didn’t plan on keeping him,” Yukimura says. 

“No,” the man agrees. “But you may have taken him from me all the same.” 

For a moment, silence stretches between them, before the corners of Yukimura’s mouth turn ever so slightly up. “I might have. I did think about it. Are you the leader of this place?” 

“Something of the sort,” the man says, with an easy shrug. Though he’s casual, his chin remains raised, and his eyes stay steadily trained on Yukimura’s face. 

“What is your name?” Yukimura asks. 

“Shiraishi,” the stranger replies. 

“I told them,” Kintarou mutters, with his face pressed in against Shiraishi’s side. “I did tell them that I was taking them to you, I did.” 

“I know,” Shiraishi says. “It’s only for you to tell. It’s up to them to remember.” 

“I didn’t realize it was anything important,” Yukimura says. 

“Maybe it wasn’t,” Shiraishi shrugs. “I wouldn’t presume to say what you should consider a matter of import. Though I might ask.” 

Yukimura smiles again, a slim twist of his mouth that speaks of understanding. “We are here in pursuit of members from a known criminal organization. In following their spacecraft we found ourselves in this solar system, on whatever planet this happens to be. It is very important to me that we find those pirates.” 

Even without the military uniform and the insignia, Yukimura’s regal bearing is impossible to ignore. He squares his shoulders and tips up his chin, stating his purpose without apology. Standing behind him, Yanagi can feel pride swelling his chest, and something more – a delicate buoyancy he suspects may be hope. 

They may have hared off on a wild goose chase into the farthest reaches of space, and still the pirates are proving to be within their grasp. 

“I am familiar with the craft in question,” Shiraishi admits. “Though I cannot tell you its location.” 

“Can’t?” Yukimura asks, eyes narrowing. “Or won’t?” 

Shiraishi doesn’t flinch. He continues to regard Yukimura calmly, evenly, his fingers carding through Kintarou’s messy hair in an idle, thoughtful gesture. Kintarou looks up as well, his bright eyes similarly unafraid – but of course a wild creature such as he would not think to fear Yukimura. On that count, he has proven his recklessness well. 

“This is a large planet,” Shiraishi says. “And ours is but a small community. I know where the pirates stay when their ship passes by, but that is not the same as knowing everywhere they might go or where they might hide their ship. And whether they wish to meet with you is entirely their own decision.” 

“So what you’re saying,” Yukimura clarifies, “is that you have no authority over them.” 

Shiraishi shrugs again. “I am not the keeper of pirates.” 

“But you could take me to them, so that I might demand an audience for myself?” 

“I could,” Shiraishi allows. “Although I wouldn’t advise a night visit.” 

Yukimura’s gaze is hard and bright; from the look of it, Yanagi expects him to demand that Shiraishi do it anyway, heedless of any warnings and beholden only to his own council. 

“Seiichi,” Yanagi says, stepping in. “I would consider taking this man’s advice.” 

Yukimura stares him down, turning his head just enough to pin Yanagi like a bug on a card. He can feel the weight of his captain’s regard, a familiar pressure that roots him to the spot as Yukimura considers whether he’ll allow himself to be challenged before an audience. A slow shiver rolls down Yanagi’s spine, and he waits. 

“Which is?” Yukimura says at last, turning back to Shiraishi. “How would you advise me?” 

“Wait until morning,” Shiraishi says. “And we’ll show you the way.” 

“In the meantime?” 

“I wouldn’t leave a guest out in the wilderness at night,” Shiraishi says. “Allow us to show you the hospitality of Shitenhoji.” 

Yukimura crosses his arms over his chest, head held high, eyes slanting for only a second toward Yanagi, as if to say, _I am making this concession for you._

“Very well,” Yukimura says. “We accept.” 

-

“Drink up!” Koharu implores, sloshing a bit more of a beverage that is red as blood into a wooden tankard taller than Yanagi cares to empty. “This is a party!” 

“What if I’d like a drink,” Yuuji pouts, from Yanagi’s other side, craning around him to make crocodile eyes at Koharu. 

“Pour yourself one,” Koharu says, and pushes the pitcher past Yanagi to his friend. 

Yanagi lowers his gaze to his food, choosing not to question how he’d found himself seated between this bickering pair for their welcome dinner. Yukimura is at the other end of the table, seated to the right of their host. His head is inclined toward Shiraishi but when he speaks, it is too softly for Yanagi to hear over the complaints of his unasked-for companions. The person to Shiraishi’s left is dark-haired and sullen; as far as Yanagi can tell, he is speaking not at all, allowing Shiraishi and Yukimura to carry on without him as he pays all of his attention to his food. 

On Yukimura’s other side sits Jackal, deep in conversation with an equally-bald native even broader in the shoulders than he is. The rumble of their voices carries; Yanagi can pick out the occasional phrase, a comment about meditation, about food, about the composition of the planet’s soil, before they’re lost beneath Yuuji’s ingratiating whining. A ladleful of something lands on Yanagi’s plate with a plop, and when he looks up, Yuuji is smiling at him. 

There is a queasy twist to his mouth; his eyes are fever-bright, green and glowing. “Eat up!” he says. “We wouldn’t want you to go hungry.” 

Yanagi doubts that he could, with the feast spread before them. Plates and platters are heaped with food, bowls filled with bright, shining berries in a rainbow of colors and dishes spread with an array of thick slices of unfamiliar fruit. There is no meat that Yanagi can discern, but the mash Yuuji has served him another helping of is unexpectedly filling, and the delicate cakes stuffed with their ground nut mixture are unbearably rich. 

He would have expected the doglike Kintarou to be a carnivore but he’s sitting on Koharu’s other side, stuffing cakes in his mouth so quickly Yanagi questions whether he chews at all. He has cleared a platterful all on his own and shows no signs of slowing down. 

“I’m quite alright,” Yanagi demures, as he presses a single glistening berry past his lips. The tart flavor of its flesh spreads across his tongue; he chews it slowly, allowing the food to absent him from further attempts at conversation. 

He would far prefer to observe. 

“We’ve never seen someone like you before,” Koharu says, denying him the opportunity. He leans across Yanagi’s line of sight, round little face smiling wide, hands pressed together before himself as if in prayer. “Where did you say you were from?” 

“I didn’t,” Yanagi says. 

Even if he explained, these strangers are unlikely to have any concept of where he’s come from. They exist in the lush bubble of their woodland paradise; how could they understand the stark sterility of a space colony, or the isolation of the classroom in which Yanagi spent his earliest years? He’s spent such a long time being taught by machines more than people; there have been jokes that he narrowly avoided becoming one himself. 

Yanagi isn’t so certain that is a bad thing. 

“Well, do,” Koharu says, pushing playfully at his shoulder. “We want to hear all about you!” 

“Absolutely everything,” Yuuji says, leaning in from his other side and not to be outdone. “Tell, tell.” 

Yanagi glances past them, at Yukimura’s bowed head, at the barrel-chested stranger whose bulk blocks Jackal from his view, at Kintarou’s tuft of fire-bright hair that bobs as he babbles conversation in a wary Katsuo’s direction. None of his companions are in any position to offer him salvation. Even if they were, he doubts their assistance would be sufficient to spare him further indignity. 

He looks at his food, at the berries that glisten a bit too wetly, at the melon whose flesh is thick and heavy and has a little too much give when Yanagi bites into it. Refusing their hospitality was unthinkable; Yanagi requires this sustenance to keep his mind sharp, to think, to plan. But the tang of the fruit lingers on his tongue, reminding him that the consequences of its consumption may be beyond anything he could predict or imagine. 

The rise and fall of the other voices at the table sweeps past him and over him, a meaningless wash of words that fades in and out of focus. He feels lightheaded; he drinks from his tankard and the sharp, sweet taste of the juice only knocks him further off-balance. 

“I am a scientist,” Yanagi finds himself saying. “I have made a study of mathematics, and the forces that inform the workings of our universe.” 

“If you want to know about how things work,” Yuuji says, “ask Koharu. He knows _everything._ ” 

Fond exasperation and pride color his voice; Koharu giggles and blushes, pushing at Yanagi as he looks away in over-acted embarrassment. “Not _everything,_ ” he says. “Just, little things, here and there. Calculations, equations, nothing all _that_ impressive.” 

Temptation toys with Yanagi, prompting him to ask, “Have you had a teacher? Or are you self-taught?” 

“Ohhh,” Koharu says. “That would be _telling._ ” 

“Self-taught, then.” 

Koharu pouts. “Now you’re just ruining my fun.” 

“But not entirely,” Yanagi hazards. “We must not be the first exposure your civilization has had to outside influences – but of course we aren’t. You’ve met the pirates. Fascinating.” 

He’s picking idly off his plate, settling into the conversation. The taste of the fruit is strong and sweet in his mouth and his breath comes short in his chest, half-held in the face of single-minded focus. There is so much he could ask these people. There are so many reasons that he shouldn’t. But this is surface talk, a game. It’s harmless. 

“I think _you’re_ fascinating,” Koharu says. 

Yuuji glares, and turns away. Yanagi pays his theatrics no mind. 

“The pirates aren’t your first exposure to foreign ideas, either,” Yanagi wagers.

Koharu only smiles at him, and says again, “That would be telling~” 

“You’re playing with me,” Yanagi realizes. 

It would be so simple, to assume that he is a member of the superior species, to allow his companions of circumstance to make jokes and play games and give every impression of being the hapless, uneducated, backwater life forms he expects. The fact that it would be easy warns Yanagi away from that dangerous mis-step. 

“Koharu plays with everyone,” Yuuji says, still not looking at Yanagi. 

“That is quite rude of him,” Yanagi says. “Considering he has not taught me the rules of his game.” 

Koharu smiles again, and this time, Yuuji smiles with him. They each take one of Yanagi’s shoulders and clap him on the back; he is arrested by the certainty that he’s passed some form of test. 

“I don’t mind games,” Yanagi admits. “So long as I know what I am risking if I happen to lose.” 

“We _really_ haven’t seen someone like you before,” Koharu declares. 

Yuuji grabs the pitcher and tops off Yanagi’s glass, telling him, “And trust us, we like what we see.” 

They let him go, and all at once their attention is riveted upon the food. They eat, and laugh, and talk over him, until their voices fade into the general din and Yanagi is left alone with his thoughts. They’ve freed him, now that he’s satisfied them. Released from their scrutiny, he hangs limp in his chair, tired and worn. 

Yanagi turns his attention to Yukimura. His captain is easy to watch; Yukimura’s expression is agile, mobile, his mouth smiling as he makes a joke, then twisting as he gives a warning, sweetly enough to remove much of the bite. It is a familiar dance. Yukimura is wind and rain and the pitiless approach of a storm, at turns brilliant as lightning and dark as a thundercloud, and as quick to turn as the weather. 

Their host parries him effortlessly, smiling just as easily, staring him straight in the face and showing no fear. Perhaps he is the model Kintarou has mimicked for his bravery; perhaps Shiraishi is more leader to his group than he cared to admit. 

Perhaps Yanagi is giving too much thought to the motions of their bodies, craned toward each other, and the easy expressions they wear upon their faces. 

But Yukimura is his captain; it is Yanagi’s duty to observe and protect. 

He looks away, lowered eyes skimming over Shiraishi’s sullen second companion and Katsuo’s nervous face. Kintarou remains bright and animated, chattering away and crowding Katsuo in against the table. Yanagi considers whether he ought to rescue Inui’s wayward protege, but if Inui had expected his junior to be handled delicately, he ought to have chosen someone else for his keeper. 

In any event, the plates and bowls have been largely emptied of their contents, the other occupants of the table joining Yanagi in sitting contemplatively back in their chairs. 

“Thank you for joining us,” Shiraishi says, calling the group’s attention back to the fore. 

“Thank you for having us,” Yukimura replies into the ensuing silence, as if Shiraishi had spoken for his benefit, and his alone. 

“It has been my pleasure,” Shiraishi declares. He claps his hands once, and his fellows begin to gather the dishes nearest them on the table. “Allow me to show you to where you might stay for the night.” 

“Of course,” Yukimura agrees. 

He rises when Shiraishi does; Yanagi likewise comes to his feet. With Shiraishi taking the lead, Yukimura following immediately after, and Yanagi moving to walk at his side, their party departs the Shitenhoji feast. Katsuo is behind them, when Yanagi spares a glance at his back, with Jackal taking up the rear. Already, the other natives are nowhere to be seen.

-

“I hope this suits you,” Shiraishi says, nodding toward the last natural doorway on the hall. 

Jackal and Katsuo have been accommodated already, each to their own tiny nook bearing its own woven hammock, like the one Shiraishi was lounging in when they met him. Yanagi glances past Yukimura to the final guest room on offer; it is long and narrow, a bit larger than the ones given to Jackal and Katsuo, but not by much. 

“Of course,” Yukimura says. “I couldn’t ask for more.” 

The room raises questions about quite what Yukimura may have told Shiraishi over dinner; Yanagi doesn’t choose to ask. Their host gifts them with a final winsome smile, and leaves them to their own company. 

“Come inside, Renji,” Yukimura murmurs, when they are very much alone, and leads the way. 

There isn’t so much a door to be shut behind them as a curtain of vines that can be drawn across the entrance; hung in place, its thick fringe of leaves shields them well enough to satisfy Yanagi’s needs for privacy. Yukimura takes a few more steps into the room, and slumps, his upright bearing melting away without anyone to observe it. 

Anyone besides Yanagi, anyway. 

He doesn’t comment. His eyes scan across the room, taking in the few pieces of furniture – a table, two chairs, each grown out of the far, narrow wall – and the way their surroundings appear to have been cultivated rather than constructed. The ceiling is low, a dense canopy of leafy branches that crowd close above their heads and unlike with the common areas, these branches are devoid of paper lanterns. Two lights illuminate the space: one glowing globe above the table, and another at the head of the bed. 

It is a bed, or at least something that bears more resemblance to one than the hammocks Yanagi has seen in the other rooms. Its latticework of branches grows out of the ground rather than the walls, like a centerpiece, drawing the eye. Further curtains of vines hang around it, framing it, and a thick, mossy blanket is spread across its surface. A canopy of sorts extends above it, as if someone had considered growing a second bunk there, before thinking better of it. 

“We have found ourselves in a bit of a tight spot, haven’t we?” 

Yukimura turns toward Yanagi, a small, wry smile twisting his lips. It is an apologetic look, and it doesn’t suit him. However regretful the outcome, any decision Yukimura makes is one he would willingly, repeatedly make again. It is a quality of his that Yanagi well admires.

“I imagine we may have difficulties, moving forward,” Yanagi agrees. 

“Difficulties.” Yukimura laughs. “That’s putting it mildly.” 

“All I do is offer you some perspective.” 

“I suppose you do. You don’t imagine the pirates will come with us calmly, do you? They may as well make it easy, after taking us for this much of a chase. I’m not of a mood to handle them with violence.” 

“Are you ever, truly?” Yanagi asks. 

“Sometimes,” Yukimura says, and his mouth curls up at the corners. “I never show my enemies any less pity than they deserve, you know that, Renji.” 

“Of course,” Yanagi says, even as a shiver creeps down his spine at the unspoken suggestion of, _and sometimes my enemies deserve no pity at all._ Yukimura is righteous and fair, the sort of arbiter of justice who takes little joy in meting out harsh punishment – but who does take great, unquestioned pride in its well-earned deliverance. “Perhaps your reputation precedes you.” 

“That would be convenient,” Yukimura laughs. “Imagine it: the pirates surrender, coming into custody all for an audience with the great war hero. Tales of my valor have been greatly exaggerated. Some of them by Genichirou.” 

“Genichirou?” Yanagi asks. “Of all people, I would not expect him to embellish a tale.” 

“Genichirou doesn’t embellish,” Yukimura says, dismissively. “It’s more that there are things Genichirou doesn’t see in the same way another person may have observed them.” 

Blinded by his commander – that Yanagi can agree with. 

“What if the pirates are not where our hosts believe them to be?” Yanagi asks, returning to the matter at hand. 

“Are you suggesting the pirates may have outsmarted our hosts?” Yukimura asks. “Or that it is us who have been outsmarted, by hosts who say one thing, but mean quite another, and who never had any intention of delivering on their promises?” 

“In either situation, the outcome is the same.” 

“For the pirates,” Yukimura says. “I would not say it is the same for our hosts.” 

All at once, Yanagi is exhausted. He is physically drained from their march and drowsy after the food, his mind over-taxed by constant analysis and re-analysis of the situation in which they have found themselves. The relative humanity of the natives’ appearances is a creeping deception, tempting them to believe the aliens aren’t so strange. It is a pitfall Yanagi refuses to fall prey to; there is no one on the planet they can trust save for their crew, but the need to be suspicious of everyone they meet will soon drain him dry. 

Yukimura is far more likely to give these strangers the benefit of the doubt, if only so they’ll have enough rope to hang themselves with if they cross him. Once betrayed, he will not hesitate to cut down a new-made enemy. 

“Come to bed,” Yanagi says, taking a single step closer to that side of the room. “Please.” 

“I can’t,” Yukimura replies. 

For all that his shoulders are slumped, there’s an unmistakable tension straightening his spine. He holds himself removed, visibly chewing on the problem of his own making and unwilling to put the issue aside. 

“Please, Seiichi,” Yanagi says again. “There is work to be done in the morning.” 

“I have to capture them,” Yukimura says. “After coming all this way. There is no other option.” 

“I would never let them escape you.” 

To Yanagi’s surprise, Yukimura laughs. He was utterly serious; the pirates are grounded, same as they are. Whether or not they have suffered similar damages to their ship, that puts the two sides on relatively equal footing – for a time. With even odds, Yanagi has every confidence he can find some means of tipping the scales in their favor. 

Yanagi is serious but Yukimura is smiling, smiling and laughing as he moves over to the bed. “You are the light of my life, Renji,” he says. “What would I ever do without you?” 

“Suffer Akaya for a navigator, most likely.” 

Yukimura laughs again, and sits. “Come here, Renji, please. Help me with this.” 

He twists his body, bringing the bulk of the life support system that sits between his shoulderblades into view. They have all been breathing the local air unaided for hours now, and eating the food. Nevertheless, Yanagi flinches, when Yukimura reaches back to thumb one of the device’s clasps. 

“Are you certain that’s wise?” he asks. 

Yukimura doesn’t honor the question with a response. He simply flicks the clasp again, and twists his body a bit further, and waits. Yanagi breathes in, swearing he can taste the green of the air slipping over his tongue, seeping into his lungs, contaminating and compromising him. He sits beside Yukimura on the bed.

“It cannot help you once it is disengaged, Seiichi,” he says. 

“And it won’t help me if I break my spine sleeping on it! We have pirates to apprehend, come morning. Let’s do what we can to ensure we are rested.”

It is a taste of Yanagi’s own medicine, Yanagi who is ever the rational one, ever the cautious one. He cannot argue with a Yukimura who is so reasonable; he cannot argue with Yukimura at all, on a good day. His fingers find the edges of the life support unit, following the curves of its construction where they nest against the sharp ridges of Yukimura’s shoulders. He holds his back straight, posed for Yanagi’s convenience. 

Yanagi unfastens the clasps, one by one, and disattaches the wiring from where it meshes with the suit. It’s a careful process, many tiny connections to break as the device decouples from Yukimura’s body. It comes off in Yanagi’s hands, heavy and dead without Yukimura’s vital signs giving it purpose. 

“There,” Yanagi says, softly. 

“I’d remove yours,” Yukimura replies, turning toward him. “If you wanted.” 

Yanagi looks away, down toward the floor. 

“Not so trusting, even now,” Yukimura says. “But that is hardly a surprise.” 

“It helps to have one of us as the cautious one. To my knowledge, you weren’t interested in the role.” 

“Oh, never,” Yukimura says. “You do it far better than I ever could.” 

“Somehow, I question whether your flattery truly counts as a compliment.” 

He complains, even as he allows Yukimura to draw him up further onto their borrowed bed. Again, he wonders what Yukimura may have revealed to their host to account for the sly offering of double lodgings, but the question ranks low on a list of Yanagi’s concerns. Yukimura’s bare hands are warm on his, drawing him close, pressing him down into the embrace of the mossy blanket spread beneath them. 

Yukimura passes a hand across the glowing globe at the head of the bed; it dims in response, as does the one illuminating the table, dropping them slowly into darkness. 

“Goodnight, Renji,” Yukimura murmurs, with a whisper of breath that ghosts against the back of Yanagi’s neck. 

“Goodnight, Seiichi,” Yanagi replies. 

His captain is a warm weight at his back, limbs loose with sleep and curling close against Yanagi’s neatly-folded body. In the dim remaining light of the room, Yanagi can only just make out the outline of the door. He is between it and Yukimura; the knowledge that he can offer at least the appearance of defense is a cool, distant comfort. 

Perhaps their host had deduced nothing of Yanagi’s gentler feelings at all; perhaps he’d seen through only to this: the willingness with which Yanagi will insert himself between Yukimura and an unknown danger they both know Yukimura is far more qualified to face. 

Yukimura has convictions. Yanagi has the cool logic to see them through. He only hopes it will suffice in dealing with the pirates. 

-

Come morning, Yanagi’s borrowed room is cool and green. Watery sunlight filters through the branches overhead, forming dappled puddles across the wooden floor and the open stretch of the bed. At some point during the night, Yanagi must have shifted closer to the wall; there is a gulf of mossy blanket before him, and no Yukimura to be seen. 

“Ah, you’re coming back to us.” 

Yanagi does not start, but he does stiffen, levering himself up with one arm and turning his head just enough to seek out the unfamiliar speaker. He’s lounging against the wall beside the door, one ankle crossed over the other and his arms folded over his chest. While his words are inviting enough, his expression is closed-off, disdaining. Yanagi cannot place his face. 

He slowly sits up in bed. 

“Is there something I can do for you?” 

“Not particularly.” The stranger shrugs, a minute motion that rolls his shoulders against the wood of the wall. “Just thought maybe I should come and collect you, if nobody else was gonna do it.” 

“I assure you, I am well practiced in… Keeping myself collected. Your concern is unnecessary.” 

“Never said I was concerned, space man. Just came to see if you were still asleep, or if maybe you’d up and died.” 

“And if I had, I presume that would also be none of your concern?” 

“Nah. I’d probably have Kintarou come and take care of it, or Gin. Maybe we’d use you for fertilizer, but I’m not hauling you out of here. Not my problem.” 

It’s morbid; more than disturbing him, the discussion clears Yanagi’s head, his mind sharpening to its usual wakeful edge. He considers whether he should thank this intruder, or whether it is within his rights as a guest simply to ask the alien to leave. 

“I don’t suppose you would be willing to give me a moment of privacy?” 

“Can’t,” the stranger says. “Who’s to say what you might do with it?” 

He’s being perverse. There’s no reason he can’t leave Yanagi alone, but there is also nothing Yanagi intends to do which will be impacted by the man’s company. He slides his legs off the side of the bed, stretches, and reaches behind himself to adjust the way his life support unit sits at his back. The suit is self-cleaning; even if he’d had other garments, there is no need for Yanagi to change. 

He still hasn’t placed the stranger’s face. 

“Have we… Met?” Yanagi asks. 

“Guess not. It’s Zaizen, from the big to-do dinner we went and threw.” 

At once, Yanagi remembers. Shiraishi’s other companion, the surly, dark-haired one with the sour face. He pictures the seating arrangements in his mind but the image will not settle; when Yanagi attempts to recall anything else Zaizen had done during the meal his thoughts skitter away from the entire possibility. His brain itches, a curious sensation, like insects crawling along the inside of his head. 

“I don’t believe we were introduced at the time,” he recovers enough to say. 

“I’m not real big on introductions.” 

“I feel much the same way. Nevertheless, you may call me Yanagi.” 

It was only polite, to offer his name for a name. Zaizen snorts in return, and pushes away from the wall. “Well, you’re in for a hell of a fight, Yanagi, that’s all I’ve got to say.”

Yanagi has no idea what he means. “I thought you weren’t concerned for me.” 

“I’m not. Maybe I’m more concerned for the pirates, when they’re done dealing with you.” 

“Do you consider me to be dangerous?” Yanagi asks. “Or something to be dealt with?” 

“Don’t know. Maybe. Probably. That captain of yours, he thinks he is. Maybe thinks a little too highly of himself, if you know what I mean.” 

Yanagi doesn’t. But if he asks, Zaizen will deny what he knows; their exchange has demonstrated his predisposition for contrary behavior. Nevertheless… There remains the possibility that in some strange, alien way, Zaizen is attempting to help. 

“I appreciate your consideration,” Yanagi says. 

Zaizen rolls his eyes. “I’m not being considerate. I just don’t like that you’re making a mess for me.” 

“That shouldn’t be a problem. As you mentioned earlier, in such an event, there are other members of your community willing to clean up what is left behind.” 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, sure. When you guys fuck everything up, I’ll leave it to them.” 

Ah, perhaps Zaizen wasn’t as unconcerned as he wanted Yanagi to believe. Not that it mattered. Yanagi had no intention of making a mess of the pirates’ arrest; Yukimura demanded their capture, and so it would be done. The matter of greater concern was how they would lift the pirates off the planet once they had been apprehended. 

Perhaps Yanagi will make a study of their ship, and salvage what he needs to streamline repairs on Yukimura’s frigate. 

Everything required will go perfectly to plan. Yanagi will see to it. 

“I would not wish to cause you reason for concern,” Yanagi says. “After you have gone to such lengths to avoid it. Allow us to handle our own problems, and there will be no reason for your friends to dirty their hands.” 

Zaizen raises his brows, making a face that says, _what, because you’ll dirty yours first?_ He dodges Yanagi’s challenge, shrugging and saying instead, “So, you coming, or are we gonna piss around here all day?” 

“I was not aware I was expected elsewhere.” 

“Whatever, space man. We’ve stood around here long enough and even if it’s not really my business what our fearless leader chooses to do with his time, you might want to retrieve yours from his company, sooner or later.” 

“My captain can more than take care of himself.” 

“Uh huh, and that’s exactly what you’d better be afraid of.” 

It makes no more sense than any other claim Zaizen has made; Yanagi has no intention of questioning it, when the good it will do him can be reliably calculated as “less than none.” Zaizen chooses not to allow him the opportunity. He turns on his heel, waving one hand over his shoulder and showing himself out. 

Yanagi isn’t concerned for Yukimura. But unlike Zaizen, he does consider it his business how his captain chooses to spend his time, and Zaizen is correct about one thing. Yukimura has absented himself for too long, and Yanagi ought to join him. 

-

The entertainment hall appears different in daylight. The paper lanterns have all been put out and sunshine streams through the vines overhead, thick and golden and rich as butter as it pours into the space below. The lack of a crowd makes a difference as well; Yukimura and Shiraishi sit in their places from the night before, shoulder to shoulder at the head of the table, while every other seat stands empty save for one. This face Yanagi recognizes; it is Jackal’s companion, the broad, stone-faced man with the deep, resonant voice. 

“Ah, Renji,” Yukimura says, catching sight of him where he stands in the doorway. “There you are.” 

Yanagi isn’t the one who had gone missing. But he accepts what passes with Yukimura for an invitation, and moves to take the seat on his captain’s other side. While the table isn’t heaped as it was, there is a plate before Shiraishi – entirely empty – and one before Yukimura, which is still half-full. He slides it down until it stands before Yanagi instead. 

“Have some breakfast.” It isn’t a suggestion. “You need your strength.” 

“I see you have already finished yours,” Yanagi says, and does not give voice to the question of whether Yukimura thought to eat enough. “Where are Jackal and Katsuo?” 

“Fed already,” Yukimura says. “It’s only you who stayed in bed.” 

“I was delayed,” Yanagi says. 

“I can’t imagine what by,” Yukimura replies, and does not ask for more. 

He’s made himself comfortable. Though silence falls when Yanagi diverts his attention toward the food, it is a companionable one, stretching out between Yukimura and Shiraishi as they watch Yanagi make inroads on his breakfast. He eats with small, measured bites, careful in the face of those eyes on his skin, pushing him to the outside as something to be observed. 

More often, Yanagi is the observer, the one distancing himself for the sake of perspective. Being the specimen for study is much less to his taste. 

“What is our plan for today, Seiichi?” Yanagi asks, turning to business. 

“We journey to meet the pirates,” Yukimura says. “Shiraishi has offered us a guide.” 

Yanagi’s gaze slants toward the man sitting at the other end of the table, unmoved for all the while Yanagi has been in the room. His face is serene; a smooth, no-nonsense mask, eyes closed and features settled into a restful, waiting pose. Their guide, unless Yanagi is very much mistaken. 

“Will Shiraishi not be coming with us himself?” Yanagi asks. 

“I don’t know the way as well as Gin does,” Shiraishi says. “I wanted to give you the best escort our community has to offer.” 

Or he wanted to avoid putting himself in a dangerous position. Yanagi doesn’t trust Shiraishi’s motivations, but he will not say as much. He doesn’t have enough information to make a fair accusation; there is more Yanagi intends to figure out. 

“Of course,” he says. “We appreciate your forethought.” 

His voice is polite and even; Yukimura shoots him a recriminating look even so, and the admonition of, “ _Renji._ ” 

Yanagi chooses only to imitate their escort. The face he turns to Yukimura is a serene, uncomprehending mask. “Is something the matter, Seiichi?” 

Yukimura is quiet a moment, watching him. “I suppose not.” 

Yanagi returns his attention – at least on the surface – to finishing his food. Breakfast is gentler fare than the dinner from the night before, sweet and light on Yanagi’s tongue before it settles warmly in his belly. He’s only eating the half a plate Yukimura left for him, but that alone quickly fills him. While his face is tipped toward his plate, his downcast eyes again look toward their escort. 

What does it say, that this is the man Shiraishi sends to lead them into danger? 

Gin is broad and well-built, a mountain of muscle well-suited to defense – though Yanagi suspects the man may be equally capable of a ruthless attack. If he were the trusting sort, Yanagi would say that Gin is meant to protect them. Yanagi does not happen to be that naive.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Gin says, speaking for the first time as he cracks one eye to look at Yanagi. Was he aware of Yanagi studying him? The chance is good, but Yanagi cannot say. “I am prepared to escort you to the space pirate’s domain.” 

The phrasing is ominous. Yukimura claps his hands, drawing everyone’s attention as he puts on a smile. “Wonderful. Let’s go now.” 

Yanagi sets down his fork, bowing at once before his captain’s wishes. 

-

The sun is high overhead when Gin stops, standing in the shade of a tumble of stones that tower well above their heads. Yanagi pauses as well, catching his breath. He cannot say how long they have walked for, but the pace Gin had set was punishingly quick. The only mercy is that most of their walk was beneath the sheltering branches of the planet’s enormous trees. Only in the past few minutes have they emerged onto open ground.

“This way,” Gin says, with his hand pressed to the rock. “We’re going below.” 

The stones stand in shadow; Yanagi narrows his eyes as he senses motion, some nigh-imperceptible shift in what his eyes can see. Then Gin _pushes,_ and an entire chunk of the cliff slides away beneath his hands, revealing the dark mouth of a cave and only nothingness beyond. 

“We’re going in there?” Katsuo squeaks. His voice shakes, his body shrinking away. “Into the dark?” 

“If this is where the pirates are sheltering,” Yanagi says. “They are well-hidden. At a great enough depth, our monitoring system would not have been able to detect their presence, even functioning at optimal performance.” 

In his mind’s eye, topographical models spool out, a spread of mountains and valleys cross-sectioned to reveal what lies beneath. With the right equipment, Yanagi could survey those depths, could map the caves beneath their feet with picture-perfect clarity. The pirates would be revealed, as naked as ants tunneling behind the glass of a child’s toy.

But Yanagi’s surveillance equipment is designed for space, optimized to monitor across great, empty distances broken only by bits of debris and unidentified junk. It was never meant for geological mapping and happens to be broken, besides. 

“Do you think they’re here, Renji?” Yukimura asks. “Hiding underground?” 

Yanagi considers the possibility. Assuming the pirates are familiar with the limitations of Company technology, it is the most logical place for them to conceal themselves. 

“I do,” Yanagi agrees. “There is nowhere better.” 

“Then yes, Katsuo,” Yukimura says. “We are going _in there._ ” 

Gin is patient while they debate their plans; he stands unmoving at the cave entrance, a sentinel guarding the way. Jackal mirrors his pose, standing on Yukimura’s far side and keeping a watchful eye on their surroundings. The presence of an escort is no promise that other dangers will spare them; Yanagi offers Jackal the barest nod of approval. 

“But first,” Yukimura continues. “Jackal, if you please?” 

He holds out his hand expectantly, cool eyes cutting to the weapon holstered at Jackal’s side. His fingers flick, an impatient, give-it-here gesture. “If I am walking into the unknown, I prefer to be armed.” 

Jackal unclips the firearm and passes it to Yukimura. There comes the low, electric hum as it engages, and a tingle across Yanagi’s skin as it warms to firing potential. Yukimura isn’t taking chances; his fingers wrap around the grip and even with his arm loose by his side, Yanagi knows how quickly Yukimura can aim and shoot. 

No one argues. The crew will not defy their captain; Gin is another matter entirely. He remains as unmoving as the stone, radiating a preternatural sense of calm. It is enough to subdue Katsuo and Jackal; Yanagi resists, his mental discipline keeping his mind sharp and his guard raised. Yukimura, gun in hand, appears entirely immune. 

“Lead the way,” Yukimura commands. 

Gin turns, and walks before them into the gloom. Yukimura follows first, with Katsuo creeping nervously after him. Yanagi exchanges a look with Jackal, then walks before him, allowing their weapons specialist to bring up the rear. Even unarmed, Jackal’s presence at his back goes a ways toward alleviating Yanagi’s fears that they are yet walking into a trap. Jackal stands the lowest chance of being caught off-guard by an enemy rushing them from behind. 

Yanagi turns his eye toward their surroundings. 

What appears from the outside as an unlit tunnel burrowing down through the dirt proves instead to be a shockingly regular stone passageway. The walls are smooth and curved, so uniform they might have been carved into the rock with a machine. Perhaps they were. Perhaps the cave isn’t a natural one, but a passage the pirates excavated for their own use. If so, Yanagi commends their craftsmanship. 

Yanagi’s eyes adjust to the low light in stages; they aren’t in complete darkness, but instead are surrounded by low, directionless ambient light. It is illumination enough to reveal carvings on the wall, mazes of straight, angular lines and wide swoops of circles, arcane designs whose meaning Yanagi cannot deduce. He yearns to stop and examine them but Gin is again setting the pace, moving them along too quickly for Yanagi’s study. 

They travel deeper, and smooth stones join the designs carved into the walls, great gems placed at the center of the arcs that cap the ends of many of the terminated lines. They glow where they’re set, some with soft white light, others shining red, or blue. The passageway grows lighter as the number of gems in the walls increases, light enough that Yanagi can read the wonder on his companions’ faces as he watches them walk. 

Katsuo is wide-eyed, his earlier fears forgotten. Jackal is wary but interested, face revealing curiosity tempered by an awareness of his duty to keep his captain safe. Yukimura’s expression is most magnificent of all, fierce in its delight and with the raw vitality of emotion naked on his face. He has an eye for beauty – and the Company-trained expectation that all beautiful things will one day be crushed into dust. 

If something lovely must be lost to the ravages of war, Yukimura believed it was better to destroy it with his own hands than to allow anyone else to take pleasure in its ruination. 

Yanagi’s mouth twists, a bitter curl which is almost, but not quite, a smile. He sees beauty in a well-balanced equation, and elegance in computer code that runs light and fast. To him, the glowing gems aren’t art, but artifice, a construction he wishes to dissect and understand. There was something similar in the bedroom he’d shared with Yukimura the night before; glowing globes posted over the table and at the head of the bed. 

The gems in the cave must have come about through the same means; it is entirely possible that it isn’t the pirates who excavated the cave, but the planet’s natives, long before any ship ventured down from space. 

“We’re almost there,” Gin says, interrupting Yanagi’s thoughts. 

Even if the natives dug the caves, it means nothing. Yanagi hasn’t yet captured the full picture; there are factors beyond his comprehension, secrets still waiting to be discovered. Wary though Yanagi is of falling prey to some alien scheme, there is a slow seduction to puzzling out why the natives have offered their help. Each new piece of data only serves as further enticement. 

Silence surrounds them, broken only by the patter of their collective footsteps. It stretches out like the pause between speech, expectant, waiting to be filled. Yanagi’s chest draws tight, breath half-held as he waits to turn the final corner. 

All at once, the passage opens up. The ceiling swoops above them into a high dome many times Yanagi’s height, the smooth bowl of the cavern studded with countless glowing gems, the lot of them strewn across its surface like stars. Yanagi remembers the paper lanterns from the night before; the similarity is too obvious to be a coincidence. 

There is a single hand at work on the planet, of that Yanagi is increasingly certain. 

Below them, cupped in the bowl of the cavern, is the largest collection of antiquities Yanagi has ever laid eyes on. Rare woods, precious gems, and all manner of metal alloys lay before him in equal measure, molded with the most exquisite of craftsmanship into furniture, curios, and what Yanagi suspects are _weapons._ Some of the artifacts he would guess to be centuries old; other items are so cutting-edge that Yanagi might have waited years for Company authorization to utilize such technology. 

“Have we come to arrest pirates,” Yukimura breathes into the silence. “Or a dragon?” 

Yanagi swallows a laugh, coughing instead into his hand. “I suspect the differences between those two classifications of creature may be fewer than you have been lead to expect.” 

“It’s appalling,” Yukimura says. “Imagine, all of this must be stolen.” 

“All the more reason to apprehend the criminals responsible for the theft.” 

Yukimura nods, and turns toward their guide. “Bring me to the pirates. I have grievances to settle.” 

Gin offers him an apologetic look. “My familiarity with this place ends here. This is the pirate’s hideout. Where they might be inside of here is more than I have ever had a reason to know.” 

Yukimura frowns, and spins on his heel. His mouth compresses into a thin, unhappy line as he stares off across the cavern, face shielded from all save Yanagi, who has moved close enough to watch Yukimura run his own mental calculations. He spins back after a few long moments, and says, “Fine! I will lead us there instead.” 

Without further warning, he stalks down into the maze. 

For a moment, no one follows. Then Yanagi shakes himself, and heads off in the same direction. From the top of the path, it was possible to see across much of the cavern, its contents laid out below them like gems spread upon velvet for inspection. Once they descend into the labyrinth of artifacts, Yanagi can see nothing but the items immediately surrounding him. 

Despite this, Yukimura never hesitates. He takes turn after turn, as if his sense of justice alone is enough to guide him true. Yanagi is grateful for his decision to follow closely; he can hear the others stumbling behind them through the maze but if Yukimura isn’t careful, he will quickly lose them. Yanagi remains close on his heels. 

They round the corner of a cherrywood cabinet and the way opens up, revealing a wide space empty of furniture but strewn with dismantled machine parts and ringed on two sides by racks of tools. A man sits before the shelves, on an object Yanagi suspects may once have been part of a nuclear reactor. 

He is dark-skinned, sharp-faced, and unabashedly muscular, his top hanging open over his well-defined chest before tapering in neatly at the waist. It is utterly lacking in sleeves; his forearms bulge without confinement, one of them scarred but of living flesh, the other one forged of slick, shining metal, its visible wiring glowing a lurid, neon purple. 

He crosses one ankle over the other, pushes his glasses up his nose with one finger, and stares down it at them. “Is there something I can help you with?” 

If not for the condescension dripping from his deep, otherwise monotone voice, he would sound exactly like Yanagi’s favorite mechanic, asking him what needs servicing when they bring Yukimura’s frigate in for scheduled maintenance. The dissonance between what Yanagi sees and what he hears is momentarily jarring. 

“Where is your crew?” Yukimura demands. 

“Crew?” the man echoes, glancing about himself as if looking for the missing men. “What crew?” 

“Are you telling me you navigated a ship to this remote place all on your own, criminal?” 

“I’m not telling you anything.” 

Yukimura frowns, and raises his arm. Yanagi had almost forgotten the energy weapon, the humming of its loaded charge buzzing in his ears until it became background noise. Now he remembers it, watching Yukimura train it upon the pirate. 

“I invite you to reconsider your position.” 

The pirate narrows his eyes, staring down Yukimura and his gun as if weighing his odds. There’s tension in his body now, but the tension of a tightly-wound spring; he’s all stored energy, bottled up force looking for the best direction in which to explode. 

Yanagi is tense like a deer caught in the sights of a predator, paralyzed with the certainty that if he makes one wrong move, the action will spell out his end. 

“Yes, I navigated here on my own,” the pirate eventually says. “Is that surprising to you?” 

Yanagi can read on Yukimura’s face that it is. There is a momentary flicker of doubt that shadows his eyes, and then he composes himself. “That changes nothing. I am Captain Yukimura Seiichi of the Rikkai Defensive Command. In accordance with the authority afforded me by Telecomm Corporation, I demand that you release yourself into my custody for crimes against the capitalist state.”

The pirate stares at him. Yukimura stares back, chin tilted up, blue eyes fierce and bright. Then the pirate tips back his head, and laughs, and laughs. 

“Telecomm authority,” he says, in between rich, disbelieving chuckles. “There is no Telecomm authority here.” 

“Then surrender yourself to me,” Yukimura suggests, his gun pointed right at the pirate’s face. “Before I shoot you, and render the entire debate of whose authority gives me the right to do so to be _utterly pointless._ ” 

“I don’t know,” the pirate says, sharp eyes watching the line of Yukimura’s arm, the grip of his hand as it steadies his weapon. “You don’t make a very convincing argument.” 

“Do you doubt my willingness to kill you?” 

The pirate considers. “No. I doubt your willingness to kill me before hearing what I say under interrogation. Isn’t that right? You need me alive, when I have information you want.” 

For a moment, Yanagi is amazed at the pirate’s knowledge of their situation, at how easily the man has deduced their position of disadvantage if they return without capturing him. Then he realizes – that isn’t what the man has said. Yanagi’s eyes narrow; the pirate doesn’t know _what_ they need from him, simply that it is more complex than hauling out his smoking corpse. 

“You’re right,” Yukimura says abruptly. “I need you alive.” 

He makes as if to lower his weapon, before instead swinging his arm to train the gun on the pirate’s knee. “Alive doesn’t mean not bleeding. What is to stop me from shooting your extremities until you surrender yourself to me simply to put a stop to the pain?” 

“Nothing,” the pirate says, and waits. 

Yanagi knows the exact power of the weapon Yukimura holds, knows just how accurate Yukimura is when he takes his shots. He knows that Yukimura could non-fatally shoot this criminal, more than once, without concern for miscalculation. He knows that Yukimura won’t; they both know that even if he does, it isn’t enough to ensure he has his way. 

“Get out of my base,” the pirate adds, at length. “I have nothing else to say to you.” 

Yukimura stares back at him, unblinking and proud, grasping for some other means of forcing the pirate’s hand. Yukimura must capture him for honor; Yanagi longs to detain him for his knowledge. Neither of them relishes admitting defeat, but both are currently out of other options. 

“Fine,” Yukimura bites out. “But do not consider me through with you.” 

Yanagi has stopped listening. He is eyeing the wiring to the pirate’s arm, taking in the various moving pieces and the way they fit together. If he isn’t mistaken, it is more than a prosthetic; his mechanical arm is a weapon. The pirate could have answered violence with violence at any time. Instead, he has repelled Yukimura with words alone.

There is more to this man, enthroned amidst an array of mechanical projects, than they had first assumed. Yanagi is assessing those projects, memorizing them, aware that his time to analyze the pirate’s work is quickly growing short. He had expected a thief; the person who stands before him is undoubtedly an engineer. 

“Well?” the man demands. 

“Tell me one thing,” Yukimura says, stiffly. “And I will leave. Are you the captain of the criminal organization known as The Spiders.” 

“I am,” the man says. “I am Kite Eishirou, smuggler, information broker, and leader of the crew you call Spiders.” 

Yukimura smiles, tight with triumph that he’d correctly judged this one thing. 

“Now get the hell out of my base.” 

-

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Yukimura asks. 

He is sitting at the table in their borrowed room. He has pried the crystal from the lamp out of its wooden bracket and is cradling it gently between both hands. Night has fallen, and no light streams in from the outside; the glow of the gem shines on Yukimura’s face and through his fingers, casting strange shadows against the wall. 

Yanagi stands behind Yukimura and a bit to one side, watching his hands as he turns the gem over and over. They shake with the most infinitesimal of tremors, so subtle that even Yanagi must look again to be certain what he’s seeing is true. 

Yukimura is the one with an eye for beautiful things. 

He speaks again without waiting for Yanagi’s assessment. “I could have killed that man, Renji. I could have done it, there in that cave. He would have let me take the shot.” 

Ah, there it was. The entire walk back from the pirate’s lair, Yukimura had said nothing, head held high, expression fierce enough to ward off any questions. He had made no excuses and he hadn’t explained, even to Jackal and Katsuo, who had missed their conversation with the pirate. He simply strode along with all the intensity of a gathering storm, danger and foreboding radiating off of him and hanging in the air like a heat haze.

Even Yanagi had kept his distance. He knows better than to invite lightning to strike. 

“The Company would be more than satisfied with his corpse. I alone find that resolution to be less than satisfactory.” 

“The wishes of the Company aren’t everything,” Yanagi says. “The ending of a man’s life is something you carry with you, not them. You must make the choice that you can live with.” 

Yukimura laughs, a sharp, disbelieving sound, and turns his head. “ _That_ is the least of my worries. Oh, Renji. Did you really believe it was my conscience staying my hand?” 

Yanagi believes no such thing. A familiar shiver slides down his spine; his face remains smooth and composed. “I believe you are doing what you consider to be best.” 

“You’re right,” Yukimura says. “I am. Killing that man won’t get me what I want.” 

Yanagi suspects they are not talking about the security contract. Yukimura’s eyes cloud over, staring off at something very far away, someplace far beyond anything Yanagi can see. He appears lost, in that moment. A ship cast off across a familiar sea, struggling to find its way home. 

Much as they currently are, stranded on a planet of unknown designation. 

“You still wish to capture him,” Yanagi hazards. 

Yukimura’s mouth compresses into a thin, uncompromising line. “I do. It is the only option.” 

That statement simply isn’t true. Yukimura has admitted as much himself; there _is_ the option to bring the pirate back in a body bag – or not to bring him back at all, if it comes down to that. But letting the man go is as good as admitting defeat, something Yukimura has never once done before. 

“We need a new plan,” Yanagi says. “We need to strategize.” 

“I have a plan,” Yukimura replies. “There is nothing for you to worry about.” 

Yanagi doubts that very much. But Yukimura’s gaze is once again sharp and bright, alive with his convictions, the ones Yanagi never could fight. He has formed no plan of his own; who is he to question his captain’s intentions? 

“Of course,” Yanagi says. “Let me know what you need me to do.” 

At that, Yukimura’s expression softens. He stands up from his chair, the glowing gem left lying on the table, his hands moving instead to cup Yanagi’s face. The brush of his fingertips is feather-light, sliding along Yanagi’s jaw just as gently as when he’d handled the crystal lamp. Yanagi holds very still, arms at his sides, not moving at all. Yukimura bumps their foreheads together. 

“Nothing at all,” Yukimura whispers into the slim space between them. “Let me take care of this.” 

Yanagi waits, prepared to let Yukimura do anything he wishes. For a moment he watches Yukimura through his lashes, before his gaze lowers, eyes drifting all the way shut. Yukimura slides his thumbs across Yanagi’s cheekbones and Yanagi can feel Yukimura’s breath on his face, mild and sweet. His lips brush Yanagi’s, gentle as a breeze. 

“Trust me,” he says. 

And Yanagi does. From Yukimura, those words border on compulsion, sliding into Yanagi’s head and overpowering the skeptical, doubting parts of his brain. Studies on hypnotic suggestion have never been conclusive; the way Yukimura Seiichi inspires loyalty merits an entire study all of its own. 

Or perhaps it is Yanagi who ought to be scrutinized, placing his faith in one man and one man alone. 

“Whatever you need,” Yanagi repeats. “If it is within my power, I will see that it is done. That includes having a little faith in you, Seiichi. Of course I trust you.” 

“I knew that I could count on you,” Yukimura says. “For whatever it takes.” 

Whatever it takes. Yanagi won’t even flinch. 

Yukimura kisses him again, less gently than before, and releases Yanagi’s face. He is revitalized; he turns away with new purpose, sliding the lamp back into its mounting and striding across the room. His steps are measured, deliberate, the walk of someone who isn’t headed toward a physical destination but who is closing instead upon a goal that exists only in his mind. 

“Don’t worry,” Yukimura says, more to himself than to Yanagi. “I will bring that man to his knees.” 

The way Yukimura says it, Yanagi cannot help but believe him. 

-

-

-


End file.
